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#natasha romanoff head canons
hopelesslygaysstuff · 7 months
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wanda "i'm so emo" maximoff 🤝 natasha "you're so dramatic, lets go cuddle and watch a sitcom" romanoff
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brightnote · 13 days
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What headcanons do you have for Maria, Natasha and them together (blackhill)?
Hello! I have a lot LOL.
The way I write them together at least in the Maria Hill: Stark Era series I am working on is that Maria and Natasha started having an on and off again relationship after the fall of SHIELD that they kept private but because they both have horribly repressed trauma and commitment issues it keeps their relationship from progressing.
Maria is exceptionally neat and organized and Natasha's more of a 'clean once every one to two weeks if at all' vibe. Maria cannot cook anything, Natasha can but generally chooses not to. Natasha always has the coolest jackets and she will never tell Maria where she gets them just to be a pain (a running gag through a lot of my fics tbh) Natasha sometimes goes AWOL without saying anything and Maria gets very annoyed. Natasha also has a tendency to 'leave texts on Read.' but to compromise she turned her read receipts on which drives Maria actually crazier than not knowing if she saw a message. But Maria can go full silent treatment if she's upset or mad. They both LOVE to dunk on Tony and they will both try to get out of a looming argument together by turning into a joke and putting it out of their mind so the tension builds like crazy.
Iconic that i got this question today because I just started a brand new fic where Maria meets Yelena in the Civil War/Black Widow movie era!!!!
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archangelofzion · 1 month
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Ok but just imagine Brutasha as parents! it would be so amazing because while they're both badass, Nat is usually high level badass while Bruce can be that anxious cupcake just trying his best.
Both of them are sooo sweet, but I imagine they'd both be pushovers for their little kid, maybe even it actually having to be Bruce who lays down the law while Nat just watches fondly as their son or daughter (or both) wreak havoc.
Tony and Yelena would also be the total cool uncle/aunt, the ones Brutasha child always wants to be around.
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Nick "if I have them (kids), they'll call me Fury" Fury never had biological children, no
But what he did have, was a cocky, half alien superhero who went to be the Avengers for every other planet in the galaxy, but still held onto the hope that maybe he'd need her again
He had an ex Russian spy so hellbent on getting rid of the red in her ledger that she forgot to keep herself safe and happy, so she slept on the sofa in his office, knowing she'd always be safe there
He had an agent so confident he'd seen her make grown men cry with a single look, but still cried when he 'died', because there was a doubt, a panic, that he'd never wake up again
Nick Fury had kids. He had 3 daughters. Each one so painfully independent, but ultimately reliant on his constant presence, his unwavering loyalty.
Nick Fury had kids, and they all called him Nick
EDIT: 100 NOTES!! THANK YOU THIS WAS LITERALLY A SLEEP DEPRIVED RAMBLE
EDIT #2: I logged on and everyone and their dog had liked this what the FUCK
EDIT #3: WHAT IS HAPPENING
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anubvs · 2 years
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[HC#001] being pepper & natasha’s daughter:
*sorry it’s long but I got carried away*
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you were adopted at a young age (around 4 or 5), by Pepper after her incident with the Mandarin
she had wanted a less drastic lifestyle
as if she would ever get one still running Stark Industries with Tony but he made a promise to take care of you both in whatever way he could
that’s how he became the cool “Uncle Tony”
Auntie Nat was your other favorite, she was always over for about 2 years before she became “Mama Nat” instead
you were like 8, of course you loved having two moms, you already loved having one, but she didn’t accept being called “Mama Nat”, she was “Natty” until you were about 10
Natasha had come in to your room after dinner one night and you could tell she was upset. “What’s wrong?”
“Mama just needed a hug from her girl.” you only found out when you were older she had a rough week fighting an army of robots. she needed to be reminded that you were still pure at heart and that she still had a reason to fight
Pepper had you homeschooled, and you hated it
when you turned 13 you asked your mom to go to public high school, arguing it was for the experience and culture, “C’mon mom, how can I be and independent woman if I don’t have the freedom to explore on my own. I’m getting too dependent on the convenience we have. Humble me.”
“Where did all of that come from?” “I spent all my summers in the office with you and Uncle Tony.”
you started Midtown High that next year, where you became close friends with Peter Parker and his friend. you helped him with his web shooters and tech after learning a few things in the lab with Tony
Natasha greatly disapproved of your adventures with Peter when she learned about it. she gave you the biggest lecture since she had just signed the Accords
which was fine, it meant you had both your moms at home all the time. Pepper was happy, Natasha felt stable. it was a happy home, until one day you came home from school and all you heard was yelling, Natasha was leaving
Mama Nat was gone, so was Steve, and Wanda was locked up, unable to have visits, who you had become close to throughout the years.
everything changed, you had to hear the kids at school talk about how the “Black Widow was a fugitive”, “should be arrested”, and “made Captain America a bad guy”
you watched Pepper go through moments of sadness to anger, anger usually coming from the delivery of things like flowers (which immediately ended up in the trash after a while), then sadness when she would sit on the couch during her off time
for two years, this went on. during that time you had stayed friends with Peter, him being the only one who could understand. you also started to take ballet, to feel closer to Natasha, and hung out with your Uncle Clint a lot taking archery lessons with Lila
you had been on the bus with Peter when he ran off to be Spider-Man. as soon as he told you he ended up in the flying donut, you ditched the trip and ran to the lab, having all access already since you had an “internship” through your mom Pepper, which was mainly a front for you to help improve and create new tech for the Avengers
that was when you saw her again.
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part 2 here!
*check my pinned post if you want to be added to the taglists*
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togrowoldinv · 1 year
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natasha would think so carefully about christmas presents.
she definitely wasnt great with vulnerability, so i think she put a lot of effort into gifts when she had the excuse to give them, because it could show someone how much she cares about them. (although i think it was more subconscious than her making a conscious effort yk?)
but she would try and find the perfect presents for ppl
Yes yes yes! I agree with this absolutely.
I think Nat would definitely think of extremely thoughtful gifts. She would identify a need or a want and go above and beyond in giving.
With Natasha I think a lot of things are subconscious. I think deep down at her core she’s so good with emotional intelligence and that would help her give amazing gifts without her even truly forcing a plan into action. It would just be the sheer thoughtfulness of the gift that would be so amazing!
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milli-moi · 8 months
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Does this work…? Are people bothered about videos posted here?
Basically can’t be bothered making a different version of the same thing lol.
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imaginedanvrs · 3 months
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where did you go?
part 1, part 2 l masterlist
natasha x reader. after a week of your worst nightmares coming to life, you come back a different person and Natasha tries desperately to retrieve your old self. but you just don't let her
word count: 9k
warnings: mentions of kidnapping and torture (not in the kinky way this time), canon marvel type injuries, shock, dissociative amnesia, depression, break up, alcoholism
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The world around Natasha thrummed endlessly as she continued to climb past the speed limit that she took no care for. Even in her state of distress, she maintained the reflexes and awareness that made her one of the few people who could drive so fast down the cramped street without issue (or fine) until she pulled up as close as she could to the city hospital. The redhead knew the way to the ward they kept you on as precisely as she did her own home, having been to that very building enough times for her teammates. She had always prayed against all odds that she would never have to go there for you, especially since you disappeared a week prior. 
  “Miss Romanoff?” A timid nurse asked when Natasha crossed her path.
  “Where is she?” Natasha demanded at once as she scanned the immediate area. 
  “Room six, but I should warn you-” the nurse called but the redhead had already started down the corridor towards your room, ignoring the warning that would have made the next few minutes marginally easier to process. 
  “Malysh,” Natasha breathed her first sigh of relief in a week as she stepped into your room and closed the door behind her without looking away. Your head was turned towards the window on the opposite side of the room and you didn’t acknowledge the sound of your girlfriend’s voice. Natasha simply assumed you were asleep at first and crept across the room to the chair, pausing when she saw your eyes were open but that they didn’t appear quite right. They were unfocused and frozen and the Avenger realised with a sharp pang that there was no brightness to them. It wasn’t just your eyes either. 
  “Hey,” your girlfriend greeted tentatively as she sat down and watched you with great apprehension. You were paler than she had ever seen and the scratches that Natasha would have usually tended to were the least of her concerns. 
  “Hey,” you whispered back, your gaze remaining locked on the window. Natasha willed herself to smile at the mere fact she had received some kind of response. 
  “It’s okay, I’m here,” she continued as she took your frail hand in her own.
  “M’here,” you repeated. Natasha’s weak smile faltered. 
  “Y/n?” She asked, watching you closely as she felt her entire body freeze in anticipation.
  “Y/n,” you repeated again though your voice was indicating that you were already growing tired. Natasha didn’t have a response of her own to that, she merely stared at the blank features of the woman she adored. 
  “Miss Romanoff?” A new voice called. Natasha tore her eyes away from you and turned to the door where a doctor was making her way into the room with a sympathetic smile. “I’m sure you’ve got some concerns.”
  “Tell me yours first,” the redhead said adamantly, wanting answers instead of pity. Pity wasn’t going to help either of you and she needed to know what she had to do to get you back to her. 
  “We’re not too concerned about the physical injuries. She’s got some broken ribs and some lung damage we want to monitor but she’s going to be alright,” the doctor informed as she glanced your way. 
  “She doesn’t look alright,” Natasha commented bluntly. 
  “Look…a’right,” you echoed on cue. 
  “It might be shock,” the doctor said with an edge of uncertainty that told Natasha the doctor was relatively new to delivering news like that. If she wasn’t so impatient for answers she would have been gentler with the young woman. 
  “Or?” She pushed. 
  “Miss l/n is scheduled for a scan tomorrow to rule out brain damage.” An uneasy silence filled the room for a few uncomfortable moments as Natasha struggled to process what the news meant while avoiding looking directly at you, suddenly unwilling to see your dull eyes that couldn’t meet her own. But she didn’t let go of your hand, even if it was unnaturally still and cold. 
  “So if it’s just shock, she’ll snap out of it?” The Avenger queried, as though she wasn’t only preparing for the worst outcome. You had always been the optimist in the relationship. 
  “With time, yes,” the doctor confirmed with a confidence Natasha was glad to hear. 
  “And if it’s not,” she pushed. 
  “Then we’ll assess her for the best course of action.” Natasha thought that sounded as though it was fresh out of a med school textbook. 
  “Okay,” she nodded. “Thank you.” 
  “She’s in the best place right now,” the doctor added upon seeing Natasha’s clear agitation. 
  “Thanks,” she repeated, knowing there was no denying that fact. Even the Avengers came to hospitals when they needed urgent attention as there were only so many resources and personnel at the tower or even the S.H.I.E.L.D base. 
  With a polite nod, the doctor left Natasha in your company. The redhead still didn’t look at you, even when you began to mutter again. “Six’een…four…” you continued on as though you were giving your girlfriend some kind of code just to see her sweat to solve it despite spending a sleepless week doing exactly that as she pulled every recourse into finding you. She had failed. When the hospital had rang her, they told Natasha briefly about how a vehicle had pulled up just a couple feet short of the ER entrance and left you there. She hadn’t found you, your captors had simply given back your corpse. 
  “It’s okay,” Natasha whispered, her vision blurring as she pulled out her phone with her free hand and forced herself to do something proactive instead of just sitting there waiting to see how bad the news she would receive in a few days would be. 
  “S’kay,” you copied as Natasha sent out an abundance of messages to her team and other useful contacts about your arrival at the hospital, willing at least one of them to be able to track down the people in that vehicle. She couldn’t let herself be consumed by anger and revenge in that moment, not when she needed to stay by your side, but Natasha found it challenging to put those impulse feelings aside when your hand felt weightless. She brought your knuckles up to her lips and placed a tender kiss to them just as a tear rolled onto your hand. 
  “Yeah,” she breathed out, letting herself imagine for a moment that your words were your own. “You’re gonna get better and we’ll go home and I think we should go away on a trip once you feel up for it,” she continued to believe. 
  “Trip,” you picked up. 
  “Exactly, baby,” Natasha smiled through her increasing tears. Your face remained blank. 
  Natasha stayed in that uncomfortable hospital chair for the rest of the day and through another sleepless night with you. Once it got past midnight and you showed no signs of taking your focus off of the window and letting yourself rest, one of the nurses gave you some medication to help and an hour later you were finally asleep. She should have been relieved at the sight, but it only made Natasha wonder how much of your time away you had spent unconscious. What the fuck had they done to you? Maybe it was for the best that she didn’t know until you were ready to tell her about it, though that was hard to believe given how many torture methods Natasha knew of and could picture vividly being inflicted on you. She always thought she could keep you safe from ever being subject to those darker horrors in the world, and instead it had made you captive to them. 
  “I can feel your insomnia from here,” Wanda called, snapping Natasha out of one of her rare trances of being stuck in her own head. “Sorry, I knocked,” the Sokovian added as she lingered by the door and her gaze flickered to you. “They told me what’s going on,” Wanda continued as she made her way across the room to the chair next to Natasha. “You should go home and get some rest while she’s getting the scan. I’ll stay,” she offered as she sat down and finally looked at you properly. The shock that flashed quickly across her features was not lost on Natasha. 
  “Sixteen…four…thirty…” you muttered as you stared straight ahead.
  “She keeps doing that,” Natasha said. “Can’t you do something?” It was the first time Wanda had ever heard her mentor sound so helpless and it took her a moment to force herself not to give Natasha a sympathetic smile. “Can’t you just reach in and pull her out?” The redhead continued as she stared at Wanda. 
  “I don’t think I should risk making it worse,” the brunette admitted as you continued to mutter disjointed numbers to yourself. 
  “You think that’s possible?” Natasha asked with a hint of disdain. Wanda knew her teammate wasn’t frustrated at you, but if she allowed her sleep deprived state to take control of her emotions then she would only become more bitter. 
  “I think that her mind is fragile and now is not the time to go rooting around in it,” Wanda stated with a bluntness that Natasha needed to hear. She didn’t respond and the pair sat in silence for a while until several nurses came into the room to take you away and Natasha immediately stood up to follow. “Nat,” Wanda called with a gentle hold on her arm. “Go home. We’re not going to get any answers straight away and if we do I’ll call you,” Wanda tried to reason but the redhead refused without any real consideration. 
  “Can you just get some clean clothes and my toothbrush? I’m not going anywhere,” Natasha insisted as she went to follow the nurses but Wanda pulled her back once more. Natasha felt her anger boil over and was about to make some demands she would regret but thankfully never got the chance to voice them because Wanda pulled her into a tight hug. She froze instinctively until her muscles trembled under the stress and embraced the younger hero. 
  “I don’t know what to do without her,” Natasha admitted as tears welled in her eyes for the umpteenth time. 
  “She’ll be back soon and she’ll need you when she is. Go get some rest,” Wanda spoke into her shoulder until Natasha gradually pulled away with a weak smile. 
  “Not yet,” she said, wiping her tears defiantly and starting down the hall after you. 
*
“So she’s fine?” Natasha asked as she stared down at your unchanged features several days later. She frowned, admittedly having only prepared herself for the worst possible answers from the doctors and wasn’t quite sure how to handle the fact that you were merely in deep shock. It was good news, of course. It was just something that no amount of medicine would cure, nor was there a clear path for Natasha to walk with you to bring you back to your original state. How was she meant to find you? 
  “We’re arranging some meetings for her to see a psychologist and ideally she’ll be discharged in a few days,” the doctor informed. 
  “Right,” Natasha muttered. Bringing you home would be for the best. You would rest in your own bed, eat your comfort food and watch your favourite shows. She would run you a bath and use your favourite bubblebath that had been discontinued months ago when Natasha had hidden one away for when she thought you would need it most. She would take you on the walk routes you always enjoyed the most and hold your hand tight so that you had nothing to fear. She’d listen when you were eventually ready to talk about your week away. She would help you get better. 
  You stirred from your sleep and Natasha observed you closely. Usually she didn’t even realise when you woke up because you remained just as still until you began to mutter again, but that time you shifted in the bed and the only sound to be heard was the small grunt of discomfort at the back of your throat. “Detka?” Your girlfriend called.When your eyes slowly opened, they met hers. “Hey,” she greeted with a smile of relief and moved closer, causing the chair to screech and you to flinch. Natasha winced at your reaction but didn’t let it deter her. “How are you feeling?” She asked, taking your change as hope that you would respond. 
  “Tired,” you whispered as you took in her dishevelled appearance. She was still the most beautiful woman you had ever seen. You reached out tentatively and stroked her cheek with the back of your pointer finger, finding her soft skin to be the familiarity you needed along with her voice and smile. 
  “I bet,” she chuckled softly. You looked exhausted though she would never tell you that. “I missed you,” she told you, searching your eyes for the glimmer of adoration she always saw in them when you looked at her. They were just as dull as they had been a few days prior and when you offered her a small smile, that also failed to reach your eyes. 
  She’s been through a lot, Natasha told herself when she felt her uneasiness arise. “They said you can come home soon,” she told you when you didn’t respond. You nodded a little and looked away from the redhead to take in the small room and the busy hallway outside. Natasha watched as you turned your attention elsewhere and tried to push aside the pang she felt in her chest. There were a lot of feelings coming too close to the surface that she didn’t want or expect. Nothing about the scenes that had been playing out in that hospital bed had been as Natsha expected. 
  “Do you want me to get someone?” Natasha asked in an attempt to get any kind of response from you again but you simply shook your head. For the first time since Natasha had met you, she didn’t know what to say. 
  “You look tired,” you commented after several silent minutes. 
  “I haven’t slept,” Natasha admitted with an honesty she had always promised to have about her wellbeing. 
  “Maybe you should go home,” you said without looking at her. Your girlfriend stared at your side profile, not quite believing what you had said. Did you not want her there?
  “Are you sure?” She asked, not having anticipated leaving the hospital grounds unless you were with her. 
  “Yeah, go get some sleep,” you encouraged with another disguised smile. 
  “Okay,” Natasha said, standing slowly. “Just call me if you need me,” she placed your phone down on the bed next to you. The screen had been replaced. It used to be covered in scratches but perhaps it had cracked badly when you were taken so Natasha had it fixed. Or maybe it was a new phone entirely. 
  “Yeah,” you agreed though somehow Natasha wasn’t convinced you would. 
  “I love you,” she told you at the door. 
  “I love you too,” you didn’t hesitate to reply and noticed the redhead’s shoulders dip slightly. You felt bad at that, knowing that in practically asking her to go you were giving her more reason to worry when she had no doubt done enough of that, but you couldn’t bring yourself to handle her doting presence in that moment. 
  You were overwhelmed and struggling to ignore the flashes of your captivity as bile rose in your throat. You weren’t there anymore, you were safe. There was no reason to keep thinking about it, but you couldn’t stop. Sixteen. It was far too much, too intense. The room was too bright and even Natasha’s lingering presence filled the space too much after so much solitude. Four. It was too loud outside, too open, too much air, not enough. I can’t breathe. Then the machines next to you joined the chaos and suddenly you weren’t alone again. There was so much going on, so much to process. Voices were calling but you didn't want to listen. 
  I can’t do this, just turn it all off. 
  And then it was settled. Everything was peaceful and indifferent. It was manageable and the storm finally stilled. You breathed out and felt the air rush gently past your lips as you settled back into the pillow that cushioned your head and felt the sheets under your fingertips. It’s okay, you thought even though you couldn’t quite place how you ended up in a hospital bed. 
  Sixteen, four, thirty, nine. That was all you could recall.
  The memories returned in patches throughout the day, building and building until you found yourself far too high up and stumbled off of that sharp ledge again. That happened four more times before you went home. 
*
Natasha was good to you as you recovered. Too good. She was patient, understanding, helpful and incredibly caring and you offered her very little in response. She continued to come and visit you though only for a few hours at a time, able to tell when you became too tired and had enough of any company. It hurt her everytime she left, more so as she didn’t know it hurt you too. You didn’t know how to tell her that. You didn’t know how to express how overwhelming it was to have the flashes of your torture strike you like a knife even though you were always waiting on edge for it to hit. 
  Natasha wasn’t entirely oblivious to it all. She saw how your heartbeat was always unusually high on the monitors just like your blood pressure when anyone came to check it. She knew that you didn’t sleep unless you were given something to help and that you rejected the tablets more often than not. She noticed how you constantly eyed the door and the tiles in the ceiling. She knew that you weren’t eating or drinking enough and how laboursome it was just to go to the bathroom and back. Your girlfriend could tell you were struggling, she just didn’t know how much because you wouldn’t tell her. 
  On the day you were discharged, you dreaded going home because it would be harder for you to hide your episodes and nightmares Natasha had yet to witness. You felt guilty for not seeking comfort in your shared apartment with your girlfriend and you really couldn’t have asked for her to be any more supportive about the whole ordeal, so why couldn’t you simply lean into it? 
  The first thing you noticed when you stepped into your apartment was the strong smell of disinfectant that meant Natasha had gone on one of her cleaning frenzies in your absence. She only ever did that on the rare occasions she had some time off from work and you weren’t around and once you had even come back to her scrubbing the ceiling. You had told her to get a hobby and she had threatened to throw the bowl of dirty was over you. 
  Natasha began saying something about ordering takeout to which you silently nodded as you took in the apartment like the first day you moved in together. It didn’t have the same homey feeling you once got the moment you stepped through the door, nor did it provide you the same comfort you could seek after a hard day. First your girlfriend and then your home, why did nothing so stable and familiar feel safe? You breathed out steadily, heading for the bathroom as you felt the panic spread through your nerves and missing Natasha’s concern as she watched you go. 
  The rest of the evening continued on those unsteady grounds that the redhead was cautious to step on. Once the meal arrived and Natasha put one of your favourite shows on the tv, she sat down on the sofa you always curled up together on and stared at her food container when she noticed you sit down on the arm chair that only ever seemed to be used by guests. You didn’t acknowledge the tv much and only picked at your food, feeling Natasha’s gaze on you even when she tried to be subtle. You never used to, but your paranoia made you conscious of things like that.
  “Do you want me to run you a bath? I kept a bottle of that bubble bath that was discontinued,” Natasha offered and you suddenly became aware of how little you were giving back to her.
  “No thanks,” you muttered, feeling a queasiness come on. 
  “What can I do to help you?” She asked after a long beat passed. You didn’t look at her because you knew that if you did you would see a face that would only make you feel more guilty. She just wanted to help and you honestly had no idea how to let her do so. “Do you want to talk to Kate? Or Wanda? Or-” Natasha suggested after sumising that you weren’t going to open up to her any time soon and she didn’t want you to keep things to yourself longer than necessary. 
  “No,” you cut her off. You had absolutely no intention of reliving the past week to anyone, you just wanted to forget about it. 
  “That therapist’s office isn’t far and it’s not until late morning so I was thinking we could-” 
  “I’m not going,” you interrupted again and carried the first clear defiance Natasha had seen on you in months. 
  “Why?” She pushed with a frown.
  “I don’t want to talk to a shrink,” you insisted. The irony of that wasn’t lost on the redhead. She had said the same thing numerous times ever since she joined S.H.I.E.L.D.
  “You should talk to someone,” Natasha pushed, unknowingly aggravating you further.
  “Why? It won’t change anything. Most of the time I can’t remember it anyway,” you told her as you actively avoided her searching gaze. 
  “That sounds like all the more reason to go,” Natasha frowned. She was no psychologist herself, but she knew that wasn’t normal. “Please, y/n,” she pushed as new worries sprang to the front of her mind. 
  “No, Nat. It’s my choice,” you snapped, putting your mostly untouched meal down and getting up from the chair without letting your girlfriend get another word in. 
  “Fuck,” Natasha muttered as she heard you close the bedroom door, making your message clear. She’s pushing me away, Natasha realised with a sense of dread, and it was because she was trying to help. 
  Natasha slept on the sofa that night, forcing herself to give you the space you clearly needed. She was restless and awake more than asleep as she considered everything she could that you would want. It shouldn’t have been so hard for someone who had known you for so many years and dated you for three of them to figure out what support you needed, until Natasha recalled the dullness that hadn’t lifted from your eyes in the past week. It wasn’t the you she was used to, it was someone else, someone she didn’t know. 
  The moment a small whimper could be heard from the bedroom, the spy sat bolt upright on the sofa and listened closely for you, finetuning her senses the way she had been trained to. Another whimper closely followed and Natasha’s fears forced her to her feet and through the apartment, anticipating the worst as she grabbed the handgun concealed in the kitchen and threw open the bedroom door. She didn’t relax when she assessed that you weren’t in danger, finding your distress equally alarming. 
  “Hey,” Natasha said gently as she put the gun down and crouched in front of your sweating form. You were crying out weakly as you struggled against the duvet you had gotten wrapped around you in your unconscious panic. Natasha swiftly untangled you from your bindings and in doing so woke you up. The way you kicked away from your girlfriend upon seeing her stand over you would be an image Natasha wouldn’t be able to forget for some time, even as she gave you her assurance. “It’s just me, you’re safe,” she told you. 
  You panted as you stared back at Natasha with wide eyes until it eventually clocked in your mind that her words were the truth. “Hey,” she greeted again as she tentatively sat on the edge of the bed. You made no move to embrace her like you used to after a bad dream, only glancing around the room as your breathing began to steady. “If you want to talk about it I’m-” 
  “No,” you denied without hearing her out. “But…” you started with uncertainty. “If you want to stay…” you shrugged and Natasha understood that that was the closest she was going to get to an invitation. She smiled in the dark and slipped into the bed beside you as you lay back down without closing the space that seemed too grande to the redhead and cramped to you. It was a compromise that Natasha hoped would put you on the right track. 
*
Another week passed without any progress on finding your captors. Natasha rarely left the apartment so all of the chasing she did was done on her own laptop from the sofa while you distanced yourself in the bedroom. She had agents and teammates following up on any leads she found but they all came up empty. The redhead had only asked you once if there were any details about your captors or where you were kept that you could remember though you shut her down quick enough for Natasha to know it was best not to ask again. 
  Natasha was beginning to suspect that the only way she could bring you any comfort was to kill the people that took you because you were responding less and less to her approaches while isolating yourself more. You wouldn’t go to therapy, even when it was suggested you could attend online and you declined any visitors that came to see you. You rarely stepped foot outside the bedroom and never left the apartment. You weren’t eating or drinking enough or washing as much as you used to. You didn’t even show any interest in the tv, adamant on spending most hours in bed by yourself. You wouldn’t let her comfort you after your nightmares and had yet to witness any of your episodes that you locked yourself in the bathroom to endure. You wouldn’t accept help and you weren’t getting better. 
  “Hi,” Wanda greeted Natasha with a warm hug. 
  “Thanks for coming,” the redhead said as she glanced in the direction of your room that was starting to feel less like a shared space. “She won’t want to see you though,” Natasha warned. 
  “I remember how that felt,” Wanda shrugged simply. “She needs this,” she said as she walked through the apartment with Natasha following a few steps behind. 
  “Hey, y/n,” Wanda greeted gently after knocking several times. Natasha watched from the doorway as the younger hero ventured into the dark room and over to the curtains that she pulled back half way. You didn’t respond, merely pulling the duvet up in hopes that Wanda would take the hint and leave you alone. She didn’t, deciding to open a window an inch to let the cool autumn air in. 
  “I brought you bubble tea,” she said as she placed the peace offering down on the bedside table next to you. “I thought you could use it,” she added as she sat down on the floor next to your side of the bed, content to keep talking to you for a while even if you weren’t going to answer. She knew that you were awake. 
  “Kate’s been asking after you,” the Sokovian continued. “They all have actually, but Kate the most.” You didn’t want to see them. You didn’t want to see anyone. You were fully aware that you weren’t the same person that they knew and you didn’t know how to get that person back. It would only be so long before they all grew tired of who you were becoming, especially when they finally realised that their attempts to help you were futile. You didn’t think Natasha was far off from that conclusion herself and as much as you wanted to stop it happening, you simply didn’t have the energy. 
  Your girlfriend shifted her weight as she watched from the doorway and Wanda nodded at her to give you both some time. She closed the door behind her though Wanda felt her linger outside for a moment before leaving. “She wants to help,” Wanda told you. “You need help, y/n.” You pulled the duvet down slightly and opened your eyes for Wanda to offer you a small smile. 
  “I’m just so tired,” you whispered hopelessly. 
  “I know. It’s exhausting having to relive it constantly,” Wanda admitted. “That’s why you need to get out of bed and focus on something else.”
  “Then talk to a shrink to bring it back up again?” You questioned sceptically. 
  “To help you manage it,” she corrected. You weren’t convinced, but you reached for the drink and took a sip of the sweet liquid that touched your dehydration. “Do you want help having a shower or bath?” Wanda offered. 
  “Maybe tomorrow,” you dismissed.
  “I’ll hold you to that,” Wanda insisted with a smile you couldn’t return. She stayed with you for a while longer, though after that your responses grew thinner and thinner until eventually Wanda said goodbye and left you to fall back into a shallow slumber. 
  “How is she?” Natasha asked when she saw Wanda reamurge. 
  “Struggling,” Wanda admitted. “I’m going to come back tomorrow though and see if I can get her up.” Natasha nodded, thinning that it would be good for someone other than her to try and get you out of bed. “How are you doing?” The brunette asked with concern. 
  “I’ll be okay when she is,” Natasha dismissed. 
  “You need to look after yourself too though,” Wanda pointed out though she could tell that was the least of her mentor’s concerns. “Any new leads?”
  “All dead ends,” Natasha huffed. “Fuckers.”
  “We’ve got the best people on it, we’ll get them,” Wanda assured. Natasha wasn’t sure she could wholly believe that, but it was all she had to cling onto in hopes of getting you back. “I’ll see you tomorrow. Call if you need me,” Wanda said with a supportive smile that lifted Natasha’s spirits more than anything else had that day. Unfortunately, her hopes that Wanda was what you needed were humbled the next day when the Sokovian stepped foot inside your bedroom again to find you far less reluctant than the day prior. 
  “Come on, y/n. You agreed,” Wanda tried to reason calmly though it did nothing to ease the temper you seemed to have woken up with. 
  “I’m not a child,” you snapped. “I’ll get up when I’m ready.” Natasha watched from the doorway as the younger Avenger didn’t allow her patience to waver. 
  “You’ll feel better once you’ve had a wash and we can change the sheets so you-”
 “Leave me alone,” you interrupted with desperation, too embarrassed to admit that the thought of just having a brief wash was too much. Something that used to be so thoughtless and simple had turned into anything but as you anticipated every step involved now that you weren’t moving on autopilot anymore. Even the thought of changing your clothes and coming back to clean sheets you used to love the smell of seemed as though it would just be a disruption to the only safe space you had. There were too many changes, too much going on and too many thoughts. 
  Then, like a punch to the gut, your mind replayed how you had been washed when you were taken and it was so surreal that you swore your skin ached as it recalled how strong the water hose had been and how it had been so cold that there might as well have been spikes of ice in that water that sliced you. You never even fully dried in the damp room before it happened again. Sixteen. “Four…thirty,” you muttered as you hugged your knees and fought back the memories that flooded past your barricades. “Nine,” you continued in search of something to ground yourself to. 
  “Y/n?” Wanda noticed your trembles grow as you blocked out the world around you and incidentally kept everything you were trying to escape in. Trapped with them. Again. 
  “Sixteen…four,” you repeated over and over like a charm to ward off evil but you just weren’t strong enough on your own. 
  “Honey, breathe,” Wanda coaxed but you couldn’t hear her or your girlfriend as she crouched by your sides and tried to take a hold of your shaking hands. 
  “Nine,” you muttered for the last time when suddenly it was all gone and you were back in the room with the two women who noticed the change immediately. 
  “Malysh?” Natasha was the first to speak. 
  “Hey,” you greeted with a sleepy smile. 
  “What’s going on?” She asked, trying to appear far more calm than she was. 
  “Don’t know,” you admitted with a frown. 
  “How do you feel?” Wanda added. 
  “I’m not sure,” you admitted with an uncomfortable uncertainty, feeling that brief stillness become disturbed. 
  “Maybe you should jump in the shower to wake yourself up a bit,” Natasha suggested. You paused, trying to place your finger on why that suggestion didn’t feel right but when you couldn’t identify any legitimate reason not to, you agreed, missing the look exchanged between the pair as you got up and trudged through the apartment to the bathroom. 
  “I’ve got it,” you dismissed when you noticed Natasha trying to join you. She nodded respectfully as you closed the door, then peered back into the bedroom where Wanda remained as puzzled as she was. 
  “What the hell was that? I’ve seen her have panic attacks before but that was different,” Natasha stated as the pair began stripping the bed as swiftly as they could. 
  “I don’t know,” Wanda muttered, stuck with the image of your distress. 
  “Wands, can’t you do something?” Natasha asked not for the first time. 
  “You know it’s not ethical.”
  “But letting her suffer is? She needs meds but without going to the doctor she won’t get them,” Natasha pointed out though that very fact had been on Wanda’s mind for the past few days. She had considered trying to use her powers on your mind to relieve some of the tension your memories placed on it, but she had never done anything like that before and it wasn’t the time to try. 
  “She responds more to you than she has to me ever since she came home,” the widow voiced with a jealousy she knew she had no right to express, but it hurt to see that your friend was somehow doing more for you than she was. 
  “Maybe I just got to her on a better day,” Wanda shrugged in an effort to appease the redhead. She wasn’t convinced, yet Wanda had no other answer to offer.
  Meanwhile, you let the water run through the shower and stared at it with great apprehension. You didn’t make a move to take your clothes off, unable to determine why you felt so uncertain to step under the water. Hesitantly, you took your clothes off one by one as the steam began to fill the room and stuck your hand under the water once you were ready, only to withdraw it with a sharp hiss. You turned the temperature down, waited several moments, and tried again. Better. A lot better once you were under the shower entirely. You dipped your head and allowed yourself some time to let the warm water cleanse your body tenderly then got to work with the soap. 
  “I’ve got you some clothes,” Natasha called from behind the door once you turned the water off. Wrapping a towel around yourself, you opened the door several inches and took the clothes with a muttered ‘thanks’ that your girlfriend almost missed. You dressed swiftly and when you were done you stepped out to see that the bed had been made up with fresh sheets and there was a hearty smell of a home cooked meal filling the apartment. You immediately recognised it to be one of Wanda’s Sokovian dishes that she always enjoyed cooking for the team and must have made extra to bring back for you and Nat. 
  “Hungry?” She asked when she noticed you eyeing up the dish she was reheating the meal in. 
  “A little,” you admitted. Even with the enticing smells that greeted you, you didn’t have much of an appetite. “Aren't you meant to have this one with red wine?” Natasha’s eyes snapped to you and Wanda paused briefly. You looked between the two and rolled your eyes, knowing what they were thinking but walking over to the cupboard to retrieve the bottle anyway. 
  “Not necessarily,” Wanda said a moment too late. Your mind was made up and after two weeks hiding out in bed, you just wanted to feel like you were having a normal meal with your friends. 
  “But preferably,” you countered as you placed the three glasses and bottle on the coffee table, entirely aware of the look the pair exchanged when your back was turned. 
  “Maybe we should save it for another night,” Natasha suggested. 
  “Guys, it’s fine,” you insisted as you poured yourself a glass and wished they would both stop looking at you like that. Regrettably, the pair gave in as they plated up the three dishes and brought them over to eat in front of the tv. You remained in the armchair, as you always did, and although Natasha would have much preferred to feel you curl up with her, having Wanda accompany her on the lonesome sofa was a nice change. 
  The two avengers barely touched their drinks though your glass was empty by the time you decided you were done forcing yourself to eat more than you could stomach. After the faint buzz hit you, you wanted to polish off their glasses for them, but you knew that in doing so you would be trying your luck with the pair. You were playing a dangerous game as it was, but for the rest of the evening, neither of them mentioned it. 
  Wanda went home not long after you all finished clearing away and you wondered how long you could leave it before retiring to bed yourself and whether or not to let Natasha know she was welcome to join you. For sleep only. You hadn’t let her touch you since the hospital, shying away from all physical contact despite the way it made your girlfriend wince. You knew that your slow progress was hurting her because she felt responsible, but you still couldn’t snap yourself out of the trance that made anything comfortable feel painful. You couldn’t quite wrap your head around it yourself, especially as every time you tried it sent you into a spiral that ended with you struggling for air. 
  “I think I’m gonna watch some tv in bed for a bit,” you told Natasha. She looked up at you with an understanding smile. God, she’s too good to me. When will she realise that?
  “Okay.” You lingered in the doorway. 
  “Wanna join?” You asked as you picked at the wood in the frame and noticed your girlfriend’s features brighten. 
  “Yeah, I’ll be in soon,” she told you with a beam as she finished up the work she had only just begun on her laptop.  All for you, of course. 
  By the time Natasha joined you, you were in bed but still scrolling through the shows and films offered to you and ended up letting the redhead decide on something. “You did good today,” she told you once the show started playing. 
  “Thanks,” you muttered, unsure what else you could say. 
  “If you want to go out tomorrow, I’d be happy to go with you,” she continued. “Even just for a small walk.” You nodded, but the unease you felt told you that wouldn’t be happening. “If you want to,” she added, probably noticing your hesitation. You should have taken her up on the offer and you did miss being outside, but the mere thought of stepping out of the safety of your apartment made you feel sick. There was no telling what awaited you and there was no guarantee that Natasha could prevent it. 
  “Are you missing anything important at work?” You queried, though the change in subject wasn’t lost on Natasha. 
  “There’s a few other Avengers and an entire organisation that are filling in for me,” she quipped off handedly. You hummed. 
  “But you’re a workaholic,” you pointed out not for the first time since you started dating the redhead. “I feel bad that I’m keeping you here.”
  “You’re not,” she was quick to input, even though you both knew that was a lie. 
  “Okay, let’s say I’m not. Shouldn’t I be trying to like…do things on my own?” You asked. Natasha paused and wondered if you were trying to push her further out of your space. It wasn’t, not consciously, and she seemed to buy that when you glanced her way. 
  “Maybe I could go in for a few hours tomorrow,” she tested for your reaction. “I’ll keep my phone on.”
  “Okay,” you half smiled and settled into the bed more with a strong sense of apprehension as to whether or not you had made the right choice in trying to get Natasha out of the apartment for a few hours. 
  You didn’t sleep much that night and you knew that Natasha didn’t either. There was an anxious hum that charged above your bed as you both thought about what your days would entail without one another. Natasha would be thinking of you constantly and it didn’t help that you had recently developed the habit of ignoring your texts. You, on the other hand, realised that you weren’t going to be entirely sure of what to do with your privacy, but you did want it. Natasha clearly wasn’t as keen because the next morning she must have assured you five times that her phone would be on and that you could call whenever you needed her, or anyone else. It was the first time you had ever watched her leave later than planned. 
  You admired the stillness of the apartment for a while. The busy hum of the city on the other side of those walls continued to emanate through, but the apartment itself was entirely void of the frantic energy it had been consumed in for the last few weeks. It was finally just you. You enjoyed that fact for the first half an hour, wandering freely through the space and relishing in your own company, until your mind had enough of the rare peace and insisted you return to panic.
  Suddenly, you vividly recalled what it had been like the last time you were entirely alone. You unwillingly thought back on the gas that had been expelled into the black box you were contained in and how soon the chemicals had dug their way into your conscience to twist it in the most unnatural fashion. You remembered how it had fried all logic and precisely compromised every one of your senses that still felt surreal. You recollected the feeble attempts you made to cling onto what you knew to be real but that it proved impossible when the enemy you were losing to was yourself. 
  Sixteen. Four. Thirty. Nine.
  Your head was spinning wildly as you stumbled into the kitchen. Your memories forced themselves so far to the front of your brain that you weren’t even sure of what you were doing when you swiped at one of the cupboards and accidentally threw it open. The sunlight streaming into the apartment caught onto the bottles and without a moment’s consideration, you grabbed the nearest one and took a sip. Then another. Then another as you dropped to the floor and begged for the alcohol to tackle your thoughts for you. You couldn’t do it alone. 
  More sips until eventually a light fog began to blur the images behind your eyes. It still wasn’t enough so you continued until the fog grew heavier and the images were finally obstructed. It wasn’t a victory by any means. It was simply a rest. The best one you had had since you were left outside the hospital. 
  You glanced down at the light bottle and realised with a drop that it was empty. Natasha would surely notice a missing bottle given that you didn’t keep many so you quickly took out your phone, ignoring the various messages, and ordered another one for you to swap out. It was only once you paid an additional fee for it to be delivered within the next ten minutes did you realise that you were going to have to leave the apartment to retrieve it downstairs. It was a daunting thought, but you were all too aware that it seemed far more manageable with the liquid courage in your system. 
  Fortunately, it didn’t take more than five minutes for you to descend the five flights of stairs, bin the bottle, retrieve the new one and scale back up to your apartment. Though your heart had been pounding the entire time, you felt good that you had managed to pull it off successfully and in the midst of the relief, you hadn’t even taken a moment to consider that the stress of what you had done was because it wasn’t right. All of that was to avoid your girlfriend finding out that you had been drinking, yet you never gave a second thought to it when your head felt lighter on your shoulders than you could recall it being in a while. 
  You emptied part of the bottle and placed it back where the previous one was with a sense of satisfaction before sitting in the armchair for your last hour of peace. With the slight intoxication, it went by faster than you anticipated. Maybe it was also down to the alcohol, but when Natasha stepped through the doorway and set her eyes on you, her expression was unreadable. 
  “Hi,” you greeted with some uncertainty. 
  “Hey,” she muttered back as she took her jacket off. You couldn’t help but think back on how you used to greet each other when you got home. A tight hug, a small kiss that usually led to more, conversation, smiles, laughter. Love. You felt your gut twist uncomfortably as Natasha trudged through the apartment to the kitchen without looking at you. It seemed as though the moment you had been awaiting was growing closer. Natasha had enough. You had to give her credit for dealing with you as long as she did. That should have been your cue to stop her and start to put things right, but you couldn’t do that to her, you couldn’t get her to carry the dead weight much longer. It wasn’t fair. 
  “How’ve you been?” She asked from the kitchen. 
  “Okay,” you answered, pulling at a thread in the armchair. “How was work?” It was a small domestic attempt Natasha took no notice of.
  “I texted you,” she told you instead. “Called a few times too.”
  “My phone’s on silent.”
  “Then what’s the point in having it?” She asked, her voice full of unspoken accusations without realising how right she was. 
  To order booze behind your back. You didn’t answer and Natasha didn’t follow up. 
  You didn’t say another word to one another that night and the tension that filled the apartment was almost suffocating. The alcohol in your system wore off far too quickly for your liking and made the evening considerably tougher. You considered, countless times, going to your girlfriend to explain yourself to her. But how could you? How could you tell her that you had seen her, and many many others, in that basement where you were kept? How could you tell her that you had lived out your darkest nightmares and that she had been right there inflicting them? How could you tell your girlfriend that even though you knew none of it was real, you were scared of her? You never did and as the days blurred into weeks, the tension in your apartment reached its long awaited breaking point. 
  If you were being completely honest with yourself, you started to depend on the drinks. You never let yourself think about it long enough to conclude that what you were doing was wrong, not when the result of it was the only respite you ever got from your mind. You could never drink Natasha’s surveillance, but it didn’t prove to be a problem when your girlfriend fell into her own harmful habit of spending most of her time and work. She didn’t want to be around you.
  You stopped forgetting about what happened once you were reacquainted with the entire collection of memories of what happened. There were no brief moments where you couldn’t recall your torment ever happening, leaving your only respite to be alcohol. You didn’t intend to depend on it, but you did. 
  Natasha never noticed. On the days where you had too much, you simply put yourself to bed after brushing the taste and smell of alcohol away and it was too easy for Natasha to perceive it as ‘one of those days’. You rarely spoke to each other. You rarely looked at each other. You both allowed for your love to be buried on the rubble of the ruins you created, still alive and too stubborn to let go but lost from view. 
  One night, you let yourself get too carried away. You were slumped against the cupboards on the kitchen floor as you tried to make sense of the spinning apartment when Natasha came home. She froze at the sight of you clutching her vodka bottle that you always claimed to hate the taste of. You had grown numb to it recently. 
  Your girlfriend stepped towards you cautiously and crouched down as you registered her presence with the same far away look in your eyes she had seen in the hospital. She thought about it every day. “Y/n?” She asked as she gently grabbed the bottle but you yanked it out of her grasp and back towards your chest. “Don’t do that,” she muttered, heart cracking as she took in your unkempt appearance. How had she let you get like this? You grumbled incoherently in response. 
  “Come on, you need to throw up,” she coaxed, trying to keep her voice steady as she placed a hand on your arm but you shrugged her off. “Why won’t you let me help you?” She sighed, not expecting a response. 
  “Why do you want to?” You bite, eyes holding a harshness Natasha had never seen in you. 
  “Because I care about you, y/n,” she tried. “I love you and I want you to come back to me,” the redhead admitted with a crushing desperation. You loved her too, so much, but you were drunk and you were pissed off at the world. 
  “Is that it? Really?” You interrogated with an obnoxious slur to your speech. “It’s not because of any guilt you might be feeling?” Natasha frowned and backed away slightly as she stared down at you. “Tell me honestly.”
  “I wish I had been there-” She tried, no stranger to the guilt you were inflicting.
  “Why would that have mattered? They would have just seen you and tried again another time,” you told her as you grabbed at the kitchen counter behind you and hauled yourself up onto unstable feet. Natasha immediately sprang to catch you as you toppled.
  “Y/n-”
  “Don’t touch me!” You screamed as you gripped the counter with a steel force and glared at the woman desperately trying to help you. “I can’t look at you without seeing them.” You muttered though the words were etched into Natasha. She unknowingly held her breath as she processed what you had just said and realised she had finally gotten her answer as to why you were so distant. “Leave,” you spat.
  “What?” The redhead felt her legs become numb.
  “I can’t do this. I can’t continue to be a target,” you told her as your fear creeped into your drunken resentment and it all came to the surface unceremoniously. 
  “What do you mean?” She whispered despite already knowing.
  “It’s your fault. They took me to get to you and you didn’t even come and save me,” you told her, tears streaming down your face that your girlfriend so desperately wanted to wipe away as she held you. 
  “I tried, I tried so hard,” Natasha told you as her voice shook as much as her hands that she fought to keep by her sides. “I did everything I could and-”
  “And in the end they just gave me back. What if the next ones don’t feel so generous?” You questioned, unrelenting in your pain you were pushing onto your partner in an effort to escape it yourself.
  “We’ll figure something out, I’ll teach you self defence,” she tried but you didn’t want to hear it. 
  “I thought I was going to die…and I wish I did.” Natasha stared at you through the blur of tears, knowing that you were drunk but that it didn't mean you didn’t mean it. In fact, it made undeniable sense. “I would rather be laying dead in that room right now than have endured a second of what they did.” You told her honestly. “So get out.”
  “Y/n-” The attempt was futile. 
  “Get out!” You broke, unable to handle any more. There was no going back on what you had said and there was no undoing the past. You were done and too exhausted to see it any other way. 
  “I’m sorry,” Natasha whispered as she stepped away in defeat. You wouldn’t listen to reason, not from her.
  “Sorry doesn’t fix what you’ve done.”
638 notes · View notes
dirtyvulture · 8 months
Text
Operation: Avalanche
Natasha Romanoff x Beefy!Sergeant!Reader
18+ only read at your own risk
Summary: Your first big mission on deployment doesn’t go as planned. 
Word count: 3636
AN: Reader has a penis, no pronouns used.
This is Part 3 in my Sergeant Beef series. It is the main canon version of this very angsty AU I wrote.
“If we get out of here alive, I’m making Fury pay for my next vacation out of his own pocket!” Sam Wilson shouts, dropping onto his stomach as bullets fly over his head.
“Add me to that list,” you respond, yanking the empty magazine out of your rifle and popping in a fresh one. 
“Sergeant, I think we need to retreat!” Peter Parker says in a shaky voice, a few yards away where he cowers behind a boulder. 
When you don’t respond, your brain racing to formulate an escape plan, Sam does. “And where are we going to go?” Your team was cornered on the side of a mountain, gunfire raining down from above while the rustling of the bushes below indicated another group were coming up for you. 
“Maximoff, did you put out the distress signal?” you ask.
“Already did, Sarge! Air support is three minutes out!”
Three minutes was a long time, especially in a hostile environment where every second of action counted. 
BOOM.
A boulder, close to the one Peter was taking cover by, explodes into gravel. Everyone ducks and you watch your soldier slump forward, tangling in the strap of his own rifle, laying on his side motionlessly.
“We need to move!” you command. “Start heading east and stay away from the rocks!”
Sam looks at you like you’re crazy to take everyone out of a position of cover, but it’s not very good cover anymore if it can be used against you. You crawl down to where Peter lies, pressing your fingers to his neck and feeling a weak pulse. Adrenaline fuels you as you pick him up, throwing him over your shoulders, your knees protesting at the significant increase of weight, but you maintain a low center of balance and start running after Sam.
“Keep moving, keep moving!” you urge, your ears dulled to the gunfire around you. Your calves burn, your back straining to stay balanced on the uneven terrain with almost 200 pounds of extra weight on top of you. But you promised General Fury that you would bring home everyone on this mission, even at the cost of your own life.
Sam suddenly drops to his knee in front of you and for a moment you think he’s been hit, until he brings up his gun and fires at the bushes near the base of the mountain. 
“Wilson, let’s go,” you pant, more concerned with getting out of the battlefield than trying to hold your own. 
“Hold on, Sarge, I got a clear shot–”
Blood suddenly stains the side of Sam’s head. It isn’t until he turns to look at you, his eyes wide, that you realize the blood isn’t his. 
It’s yours.
Your right leg completely gives out and a hot pain rips up your thigh, taking your breath away. Blood pools heavily on your fatigues and you know you were hit in a bad spot. Peter’s weight on your shoulders causes you to fall forward and you lose your grip on him as he rolls onto the ground.
“Wilson, Wilson take Parker,” you gasp, patting your vest for a tourniquet. 
“I’m not leaving you, Sergeant,” Sam says. 
“Get everyone else to safety. Keep moving until the bird comes in,” you say, your hands shaking as you struggle just to undo the velcro of the tourniquet. 
“Sarge–”
“That’s an order.” There is no time for arguments. 
“Let me help you, at least.” Sam takes the tourniquet and slips it up your leg, cinching it tightly above the wound until you can’t feel anything below the strap. He grabs Peter, placing him in the same fireman’s carry you had him in, and starts running away as you take your rifle out to provide coverage. 
You prop yourself against a rock, firing at any movement in the bushes. Your heart hammers against your chest and you force yourself to stay focused and not to look after Sam and the other soldiers making greater and greater distance from you. While you would rather not be alone, bleeding out on foreign soil, you know this is your duty and the responsibility you accepted. 
One minute until the rescue helicopter arrived. 
You count down your bullets, firing sparingly but feeling like for every person you take down, two more appear. A bullet grazes your cheek and the pain is distracting but welcoming from the fear of death. You aren’t really ready to die, but if today is your day, you will accept it with grace. 
You think about Natasha and how you hadn’t seen her in three months. How ferociously she fought your deployment and how devastated she was when General Fury wouldn’t budge on your assignment. The last few nights you two spent together were ones you would never forget, and you hoped you would get the chance to spend one more with her. 
You twist around to fire near the mountain tops, unable to take on pressure from both angles. As you struggle to reload, another bullet catches you in the side. The pain is explosive and literally blinding as you fall onto your back, helpless and exposed, gasping for air with a punctured lung. You fight to sit back up, your fingers slippery and wet with blood as you maintain a death grip on your weapon. It feels impossibly heavy in your arms now as you try to lift it, using a rock as a crutch when you realize you’re too weak to hold it on your own.
Blackness threatens the edges of your vision and you’re painfully aware of how agonized your breathing sounds as you struggle to draw in air to stay focused. The trigger of your rifle feels like it weighs 1000 pounds, and every shot you take takes considerable effort. 
You hear the whistle before the grenade impacts behind you, sending you flying into the air like a ragdoll. You’re not even sure which way is up when you finally land, breathing in dirt and blood. For some reason, you feel embarrassed that this is how they’re going to find your body, if your team gets to you before the enemies do. All the strength you had ever possessed, all the life you had ever lived, crumpled and crushed into a broken body. 
You can’t keep your eyes open anymore, as hard as you try. All the noises surrounding you, the gunfire, the screaming, the explosions, seems to fade away. You think about Natasha again, her arms wrapped around you while you lie on her chest, listening to her strong heartbeat while she tells you about all the plans she has for you two. You’re still waiting for the day she finally says that she loves you, but maybe that wasn’t something you were destined to hear. 
Unconsciousness takes you slowly and you finally give in, still hoping that your team escaped harm and that you would reunite with Natasha one day.
***********************************************************************
When you try to open your eyes for the first time, it feels like you have anchors attached to your eyelids. It takes you so much effort you don’t even think it’s worth it, until bright white lights cut through and you feel light-headed as consciousness returns to you.
“Y/N? Hey, Y/N?”
“Someone get the doctor.”
“Vitals are spiking.”
You hear voices but don’t recognize them, suddenly overwhelmed by an intense pain that attacks every bone in your body. You’re completely paralyzed by it, your teeth grinding together while you fight to stay awake, but after a few seconds, the pain starts to dissolve into a manageable numbness and you sigh in relief.
“Sergeant Y/N, if you can hear my voice, can you open your eyes for me?”
You’ve been trying to do that this whole time, but your body is reacting so slowly it’s frustrating.
“How about you move a finger for me?”
You try to heed the instruction, but now you’re so numb you’re not sure if you’re moving anything.  
“It’s a lot to ask so soon after surgery. We should wait a little while longer.”
There is the shuffling of footsteps.
“Y/N?”
You recognize Natasha’s voice instantly and your eyes fly open, squinting at the harsh lights. It takes you a few seconds to focus on your surroundings, but you come to realize you’re in a hospital bed, wearing only a flimsy paper gown and the entire right side of your body is covered in casts and gauze. 
“Y/N?” Natasha jumps up, holding onto your left hand that you see has a clear plastic tube taped to the veins. “Oh my God, you’re actually awake. How do you feel, baby?”
Your mouth tastes like you swallowed a handful of sand. It takes a second before you have enough saliva in your mouth to speak. “Wheremeye?” you garble out. Natasha grabs a white cup from the nightstand and holds it to your lips so you can take a few sips. “Thanks…” you gasp, surprised at how much saying one word hurts. “Where…Where am I?”
“Fort Sam,” Natasha answers. You notice how she hasn’t let go of your hand once. She’s dressed casually, her hair tied into a messy bun that would not pass even the most generous of uniform inspections. Her eyes are red and irritated, her cheeks dry, like she’s spent the last 24 hours crying.
“S-Sam?” you ask, you mind first going to your teammate. 
“Fort Sam in Houston, Texas,” Natasha says. “They brought you here to the medical center after your mission was compromised.” 
“Mission?” The memories come back to you in pieces. You remember the ambush, Peter getting knocked out by an explosion, carrying him to safety before taking a bullet yourself, then telling Sam to go on with the rest of the team while you stayed behind and tried to cover them. “My team…Where’s my team?”
“They’re fine,” Natasha says. “Parker had a minor concussion, and the rest had some scrapes and bruises, but everyone is fine.”
“Good, good.” You wouldn’t be able to live with yourself if something worse had happened to your teammates, although you’re not exactly thrilled with your current position either.
“Do you remember what happened?” Natasha asks. 
“A little bit.” But you’re not ready to talk about it and she can sense that. 
“I love you,” Natasha blurts out suddenly.
“Huh?” you say dumbly, although you had heard her perfectly clear.
“I love you so much, and I was so worried when Fury called me and said your team had been ambushed and that you were in critical condition,” she rambles. “I didn’t know if I was going to see you again, and then I thought about how I never told you how I really feel about you…”
“Do you mean it?” you ask, wondering if this confession was just a result of the high emotions. Natasha was an infamously private person, even around you, but she had eventually warmed up to you in a way she hadn’t to anyone else before. Still, this was a level of emotion you had never seen from her before and you wanted to make sure it was real.
“I love you with all my heart,” she says, holding your hand tighter and leaning forward to kiss your cheek gently. “And I can’t imagine my life without you.”
“I love you, too,” you say, with as much passion as you can muster. You want to reach out and wrap her in a hug, hold her tightly and promise her that you’re not going anywhere, but you’re so weak you can’t even squeeze her hand back. 
Natasha stays close to your side as the painkillers lull you back into unconsciousness. Her presence is comforting and you know you’ll be safe with her watching over you.
***********************************************************************
You wake up a few hours later, Natasha still next to you, and a doctor comes in to bring you up to speed. Your entire team had been evacuated from the field successfully, with you sustaining the worst injuries with bullets going through your thigh and right lung. You also broke your right arm when you landed wrong on it after being propelled into the air by a grenade explosion. Long story short, your body was a complete mess and it would be a few months before you would be back to your usual self. 
Natasha cashed in all her time off to stay with you as long as she could at the Fort Sam base. You were a little surprised but grateful, and having her around kept your mind off the fact that you were stuck in a bed for weeks. You had a lot of visitors, most of them your superiors and co-workers, but you preferred Natasha’s company over any of them. 
One day you’re watching workout videos on YouTube, jealously groveling over the fact that by the time the doctors let you out of bed, you probably wouldn’t be able to lift even 5-pound weights without a struggle, Natasha comes in with some plastic basins and a few towels folded under her arms.
“Hello,” you say, closing your laptop to give her your full attention. “What are those for?”
“Your nurse told me it’s your bath day,” Natasha says. “And I figured you might want me to help you over her.”
“Are you jealous?” you tease, as she goes over to the sink and fills one of the bowls with water. 
“No,” she says, and you don’t believe her for a second. “I just want to make sure you’re taken care of.”
“Everyone here has been really good to me,” you defend. 
“Yeah, but your nurse can’t take care of you the way I can.” She looks over her shoulder at you with a smirk. 
“Oh.” Obviously, it had been nearly impossible for you two to be intimate because of your injuries, and with the number of medications you were on and everything else going on, you hadn’t really been in the mood. But when Natasha looks at you with lustful eyes, the blood rushes into your groin and you’re immediately light-headed.
Natasha comes back to your side and assembles all the supplies she needs. You watch quietly, not new to this process, but curious to see if she’s just as competent as your nurse was. 
“Do you want me to wash your hair, too?” she asks.
“If it’s not too much.” You hate feeling so helpless and like a burden to others, even if it was their jobs. You still can’t even get out of bed to use the bathroom, and the mental effort it takes to summon the courage to press the call button when you need something is the equivalent of running a marathon.
“I can do that,” Natasha says. It’s rare to see her soft side, but you won’t tease her compassion. You suspect that she’s actually thrilled at this opportunity to take care of you, but again, you won’t comment.
She starts by laying you on your back and propping your head inside an inflatable basin. With surprising proficiency, she rinses your hair and lathers in a foamy shampoo, while you close your eyes and enjoy the massage. She nudges you awake and sits you back up, drying your hair with a loose towel.
“How is that?” she asks.
“It felt really nice,” you say. 
“Good.” She’s acting almost strangely professional with you, but you don’t question it. She takes off your gown and wets a washcloth, wiping it over your face and neck, then across your shoulders and down your left arm. You notice her linger along the scar on your bicep and flex your arm experimentally to see her reaction. Luckily, it hasn’t been too long that your muscles have atrophied from the lack of use, but you want to take advantage while you still can. Natasha doesn’t say anything, but you see the corners of her lips lifting in a small grin. 
She washes your chest and abs, careful around the gauze pad taped to your side where a bullet had spiraled through your ribs and poked a hole in your lung. When she lifts the gown off your legs, she chuckles at the fact that you’re not wearing any underwear and also ragingly hard. 
“Uh, this doesn’t normally happen with my nurse,” you defend, your cheeks heating up in embarrassment, even though you’re certain this is as much of a turn on for her as it is for you.
“It’s okay. I’ll take care of that once I’m done washing the rest of you,” she says with a wink, and you feel yourself throb at the prospect.
She washes your legs and feet, then carefully rolls you onto your side to wash your back and butt. It feels awkward now to have her take care of you like this, for her to see how useless you are that you can’t even wipe your own ass, but she doesn’t say anything until you’re rolled back over. 
“Almost done,” she says, grabbing a fresh washcloth and carefully wiping your groin area. “There we go.”
“Thanks, Nat.” You watch her take all the supplies away and wash her hands in the sink, suddenly feeling very sleepy despite the fact that you did literally nothing. You lean back against your pillows and close your eyes. When you open them only seconds later, Natasha is pulled up in a chair by your bedside. 
“If you’re tired, you can sleep,” she says. 
You shake your head stubbornly. Every second Natasha is with you, you want to take advantage of. Because she won’t be with you forever–literally, since in a few weeks she would have to return to Fort Bragg in North Carolina, and you didn’t know when you’d see her after that. It could be several more months that you were stuck here, working through physical therapy and any subsequent surgeries you needed. Natasha said she would try to relocate to a base closer to you, but she couldn’t make any promises. 
You hold out your hand for her to take and squeeze her fingers as tightly as you can. 
“I love you,” you say, fearing that you can’t get the point across enough. Your near-brush with death taught you a lot, most importantly how not to take any moments for granted. 
“I love you, too,” Natasha responds, and the heart rate monitor embarrassingly outs your excitement when the beeping skyrockets for a few seconds. She laughs. “Well, looks like you can’t hide anything from me anymore,” she says.
“I wasn’t hiding anything,” you say, your eyes darting to between your legs, where you are still very exposed and very hard. “Also, you made this happen and you did promise you'd take of it," you remind her.
“I did.” Natasha reaches over and holds your cock in her warm hand. You try and fail to hide your excitement at her mere touch, glaring at the heart rate monitor in frustration. “Don’t be mad, it’s kind of hot how nervous I make you,” she says.
“I’m not nervous, I’m just happy you’re here,” you explain. 
“Oh, I can see you’re very happy.” She starts stroking you slowly and you struggle to sit up so you can watch. Her thumb rubs circles around your tip and you sigh in pleasure. You had been entirely uninterested in getting yourself off when you had been alone, but with Natasha here, it suddenly feels right. 
As pre-cum drips out of the head, Natasha wipes it off and rubs it up and down your cock, keeping a tight pressure with her fingers that almost has you moaning if you hadn’t stopped yourself. Your hips try arching off the bed, but the movement causes too much pain in your thigh so you’re forced to stay grounded. The muscles in your abs tense as you breathe heavily, helplessly reaching or the railing of the bed with your good hand to stabilize yourself. 
“Fuck, Nat, that feels so good,” you whine when she adds her other hand, but even then your length is so big she can’t cover it all with both hands. Your cock is practically glistening with you own pre-cum now, and you tilt your head back into the pillow with a moan when Natasha rubs the sensitive spot below your tip. 
“Don’t make a mess,” she warns, her hands jerking you faster, twisting her wrists in opposite directions. You squirm on the bed, embarrassed at how soon you’re about to cum, but you blame it on the medications and your lack of practice. As your breathing picks up, your side stretches and there is a lightning bolt of pain up your ribs, but you ignore it as the ball of arousal in your stomach tightens.The slick noises your cock makes as Natasha pumps you in and out of her hand are so filthy that your head spins. 
“Oh, God. Please, Nat, I think…can I…I’m gonna…” You are completely incoherent as you watch Natasha jerk you off, throbbing in her hands so hard that she can feel your heartbeat. You have no idea how you’re not going to make a mess, unless she stops touching you, but you can’t think of anything you want less right now. 
Without saying anything, Natasha leans over and sucks your tip into her mouth. The wetness and warmth of her mouth is too much and you grunt as you release yourself in a few rather weak spurts. She swallows everything you give her, her tongue licking up every drop, before she draws back and smiles at you. Your cock is limp against your leg almost immediately. 
“That felt really nice,” you pant, flopping back on the bed, truly spent now. “I’ll return the favor soon, baby. I promise.”
She gives your cock a soft pat. “I know you will.”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
AN: And all is well again. It was nice seeing Sergeant Romanoff being soft with Sergeant Beef for once. :)
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Text
In the Background - Chapter 4
Summary: You’ve been dating Natasha in secret since her early days in SHIELD, and you’ve been in the background of all her missions since.
Word Count: 5155
Pairing: Natasha Romanoff x Reader
Warnings: canon violence
A/N: uhhh, hey everyone! 10 months since the last update, here's the start of the Age of Ultron section! Thanks again to @emril-osvigne for getting me back into this :) Hopefully the next part should be out soonish but until then, reblogs and comments are very much appreciated!
Series Masterlist
Previous Part
—:::——::-————>◇<—————::——:::—
“Don't you guys ever sleep? I want to sleep.”
“It's 10 am; sun's up. We can't be wasting time.”
“Yeah, 10 am is all well and good…but it's 4am here. Do you not get jet lag? And don't tell me you slept on the plane; I know you didn't sleep on the plane.”
Natasha's laugh came through the comms and almost made it worth it. You were still annoyed and sleep deprived, but almost worth it.
“If you get us through, then we can all go to bed faster.” Natasha really did know the way to your heart.
“In that case, Romanoff, take a left. You're going the wrong way.”
“You only just now tell me?”
“You only just turned!”
Just then, an alert began to ring, ‘we are under attack’ echoing through the halls of the HYDRA facility, and picked up by the access Maria had found. At the same time, the camera feeds in front of you filled with smoke, soldiers, and streaks of ammunition.
Maria turned to you. “You know, I think they've been spotted.”
“You don't say!” came Tony's strained reply.
All you could do was watch as the Avengers stormed forwards; J.A.R.V.I.S. took care of everything on the field, so you let your attention drift towards Natasha’s suit camera footage. For the most part, all that you could see were spinning trees and approaching enemies, but every so often, glimpses of Natasha’s arm or leg would appear on screen, or she’d appear in Clint’s footage, and that was enough to have you daydreaming of all the moves that you knew she was pulling out. You almost felt sorry for the soldiers, having been on the receiving end of the Black Widow’s blows yourself, you knew they were a force to be reckoned with.
Clint’s camera flipped rapidly in the corner of your eye, pulling your attention away. Maria saw it too, and the both of you exchanged worried looks over the fact that Clint had been knocked by an unseen opponent; even as he lay on the ground, his enemy was outside the field of view.
“Barton, are you okay?” Maria asked, but only got groans in response.
You kept a closer eye as he pushed himself up, so you saw when a blond haired man walked across his screen, looking down at him with an expression that could almost be described as amusement. “You didn’t see that coming?” he said, but didn’t attack; he just continued to walk before disappearing into a blur of blue.
“What just happened?” you asked. You might have written it off as a sleep-deprived hallucination, had Maria not been staring at the screen too, similarly slack-jawed. Along with Clint, both of you at HQ watched intently down the archer’s line of sight, following the aim of his arrow – it’s what made it all the more startling when his screen tipped again, this time accompanied by a yelp.
“The blur again?” Maria stressed, but you shook your head, pointing to Natasha’s screen. Positioned alongside her closest friend, she was the first to notice his fall, and turned from her own approach to run towards him, giving you a clear view of his injured side. Almost synchronously, Steve’s camera flipped in a full 360 before he looked around, but again, no enemy in sight.
“We have an enhanced in the field,” he announced. The speedster.
At the same time, Natasha confirmed her visual for both HQ and the team on the field: “Clint’s hit!” She rushed to his side, allowing you a close-up visual of the burn – although it had only grazed his side, with the damage it caused you knew he’d been lucky that it wasn’t a direct shot.
“I’ll get Helen,” Maria mumbled, pushing her chair away from the desk and rushing out of the office, phone in hand to call the Avengers’ resident doctor – aside from Dr Banner, of course, but he was otherwise preoccupied.
Speaking of, Hulk charged through Natasha’s footage, roaring as he leapt and destroyed the bunker which had injured Clint and continued to endanger Natasha. She thanked him. You turned your attention to the other Avengers momentarily, still fighting their way into the building, but your attention always returned to Natasha as she tried to heal Clint on the field. Tony destroyed the defences, Steve and Thor found each other to discuss plans, but Natasha remained kneeling by Clint, who by this point had given up on his struggle to stand.
“Clint’s hit pretty bad guys; we’re gonna need evac.”
“I can get Barton to the jet,” Thor promised, “the sooner we’re gone, the better.”
Natasha stayed with Clint until Thor arrived then, once the god took her friend to safety, she moved on to your least favourite part of all Avengers missions – calming the Hulk. Although you knew why she was the person best suited for the job – a calming presence on the team and her quick thinking solutions if things went wrong – seeing an uncontrolled being roar in the face of your girlfriend tended to get your heart pounding. Still, as she held her hand out and stared him down, the Hulk began to respond; his grunts softened, his steps shrunk, and he eventually held his own hand out, dwarfing Natasha’s when he went to touch it. You watched Natasha trace her fingers over the forearm of the Hulk and felt phantom sensations mimic the move on your own arm, as your mind filled with memories of nights in your room with Natasha, where you laid with your sleeve rolled up to let her practise her gentle touch.
Soon enough, Bruce came stumbling back, faster than ever before. Natasha led him slowly back to the quinjet before he went to calm himself and she went to check on Clint. Tony and Steve returned soon after, sceptre in hand but expressions sombre – you don’t know what had happened to Tony, but he had stumbled around the room for a few moments before he grabbed the sceptre, and spoke little after that point. You saw him smile at the others through their cameras but afterwards he went straight to the pilot’s seat, while Natasha sat as co-pilot.
“We’re on our way back,” Natasha stated, and from your charts you could see the jet ascend out of the Sokovian woodlands.
“Hill’s got Cho on her way for when you get here. Otherwise I’ll trust you don’t need my assistance for the way back.”
“We’ll be good, Y/L/N.”
“Okay,” you hummed, checking no other Avengers lurked on the channel, and that Maria was still out of the room, “I’ll see you soon, baby, get home safe.”
“I’ll try my best, Agent,” was all Natasha said. All she could say. But you heard the meaning behind her words. You smiled, and then you hung up; you would see them all soon.
—:::——::-————>◇<—————::——:::—
Maria met them at the hangar, pulling double duty of escorting Helen Cho to Clint so she could transport him safely, and finding Steve to pass on the information you and she gathered on the ‘enhanced individuals’ the Avengers had encountered on their mission. Facial recognition on Clint and Steve’s body cam footage had identified them as Pietro and Wanda Maximoff, then Maria had searched for references to them in the information Stark sent through, finding a list of powers they’d gained under HYDRA.
You hung back. Being off-duty for the Avengers’ long flight home had allowed you to get the sleep that Natasha had promised earlier. You knew Natasha would be with Clint, both keeping him company and keeping tabs on his well-being until he had fully recovered – a process that would be very quick if your conversation with Helen was to be believed – but once he was up, your girlfriend would finally be ready to sleep and return to you.
For the sake of appearances, you didn’t officially share a room at the Tower: Natasha had a whole floor of her own, while you shared yours with the other ex-S.H.I.E.L.D. recruits. Whenever it was possible, Natasha and you didn’t stay at the Tower at all, preferring the privacy of the DC apartment the two of you had shared throughout your time at S.H.I.E.L.D., but it was no longer within an easy distance of work and, more often than not, the both of you ended up staying at the Tower. It took caution, and a lot of planning, to ensure you still spent nights with your partner – leaving for ‘home’ on different days to avoid suspicion, sleeping in your own room every now and then even on the nights where Natasha was in the Tower, and, in your case only, riding the elevator all the way up to your office at midnight if someone else steps into the capsule with you, hiding your true destination of the Black Widow’s bedroom. Avengers employees were terrible gossips.
But on that day, you were alone: the regular 9-5 employees were going about their jobs, the ‘on call’ employees had gone off to sleep, and the Avengers were too preoccupied with their post-mission routines to pay anyone else much attention. The Tower was as quiet as it ever could be, so you rode up to Natasha’s suite and sat on her couch with a tablet in hand and information at the ready – as an excuse in case anyone but her entered the room next.
Luckily for you, this was a day where everything went to plan: 40 minutes after the quinjet touched down, Clint was healed and as good as new. 45 minutes after the quinjet touched down, Natasha stepped out of the elevator, smiled at the sight of you, and walked into your open arms.
“Hi baby,”
“Hi,”
“How’s Clint?”
“Back to his usual self,”
“How awful,”
“I know. At least Laura will be glad.”
“We can’t lose him before baby Natasha comes into the world.”
“I was thinking I might visit them with Clint now that there’s no sceptre to worry about. Would you like to come? Check on my future protege with me?”
“Of course I would,” you promised, leaning in just close enough for your lips to touch, “anywhere to be with you.”
Natasha took your hint without delay, shuffling closer in your arms to close the distance between you, laying gentle kisses to your lips before pulling back to speak again. “We’re heading off Sunday, after the party, taking a bus part of the way and his car, so we can all go together without suspicion.”
“There’s a party?”
“Saturday night, Tony just decided on it.”
“Of course he did.”
Both yours and Natasha’s phones chimed, and you reached into your back pocket to check it – a difficult task considering you were sat with Natasha straddling your lap, but you managed. Natasha checked hers too, confirming that you had both received the same message: an invite to the ‘sceptre retrieval party’ on the Saturday. Formal attire. Veterans in attendance for Steve to ‘bond with people his own age’. Steve would probably thumbs down that addition… if he knew how to react to messages at all.
Natasha hadn’t looked up, but she knew an unimpressed expression would greet her. “You’ll get to watch me get ready,” she offered.
“The only highlight.”
“Aw, am I really that bad of a conversationalist?” Natasha smirked.
“The worst,” came your reply, but with a smile before she could offer to spend the party talking to someone else.
“Luckily for you, sweetheart, we have three whole days uninterrupted before then, maybe we can work on my conversation skills.”
“I think we can make that work,” you said, smiling into the next kiss. You let her relax on your lap before quickly changing the pace; you pushed her back, strong enough to move her yet light enough to catch her before she fell fully.
“Hey!”
“Go take a shower first, you reek of gunpowder.”
She rolled her eyes, pouted at you, and shook her head, yet she still conceded. “Whatever you say, baby.”
You didn’t have to ask this time. She definitely meant that ‘baby’ as an insult.
—:::——::-————>◇<—————::——:::—
Days without missions were rare as Avengers, but they had been even rarer as SHIELD agents, so you and Natasha had learned how to make the most of them. From coffee dates in disguise, to reading books while sprawled across your living room, and even to skydiving (once. You vowed never again, but Natasha had seemed a little too comfortable with it), it was safe to say that you’d covered a wide range of activities, and the three days you had with her now were no different.
But all good things must come to an end, and three days later the two of you were back on her floor of the Tower, getting each other ready for the party. She opted for a classically stylish look: black and white dress, curled hair, red lips – she looked beautiful, and you made sure she knew it. In addition to that, the monochrome look served a secondary purpose, allowing the two of you to dress in complementary couple’s outfits, without actually drawing attention to the fact that you were a couple. If the two of you entered the room together, then maybe the others would notice that your white suit and black shirt perfectly matched Natasha’s dress, but you knew better than to do that.
Natasha entered first, alongside the other five Avengers, to begin the meet and greet that always started these parties. You followed an hour later and found the party in full swing: Colonel Rhodes entertained guests with stories of his heroics, Steve and Thor led a veteran out to the chauffeur, and Tony showed off his gadgets to some of the senior officers in attendance. But, of course, your gaze sought Natasha immediately, and it found her behind the bar, pouring herself a drink while Bruce stumbled through a flirting routine. As much as you wished to, it would be too telling for you to beeline towards her and interrupt Bruce’s attempt at a date, so you contented yourself to sit on the couch with Clint and only occasionally sneak glances at the redhead.
The archer caught on immediately, and laughed as soon as he followed your line of sight. “You worried about the competition?”
You glanced around, checking once again for eavesdroppers in the conversation before you answered with a shake of your head. “Not with Nat, no, she’s earned my trust completely…”
“But?”
“But Bruce doesn’t know it and,” you tilted your head to the side, nodding in the direction of another spectator, “clearly Steve doesn’t know it either.”
Just then, as your attention fell back on Natasha, her eyes found you over Bruce’s shoulder and lit up at the sight; she hardly hid her smile as she made her exit, leaving the scientist staring at the spot she’d vacated in order to make her way over to you, settling beside you on the couch. “What are you two gossiping about, hm?”
“Oh, you know, just… relationships… and secrets”
“Not that I would know anything about that,” Clint added with his hands held up.
“Of course not, of course not. Not a thing for us three esteemed members of society to be dealing in,” you joked.
“Never,” Natasha finished with a laugh. Then movement from the bar drew your attention back to the scene at hand, all three of you instinctively going quiet in an attempt to listen in, only occasionally diverting your focus or sipping drinks to hide your actions.
“Ooohoohoo,” Clint laughed, “I think good ol’ Cap just told Banner to ask you out.” You’d come to the same conclusion, so nodded and laughed alongside the archer at Natasha’s long sigh.
“Here’s hoping that doesn’t make things awkward.” Natasha’s response was quick, as Steve made his way to sit with the three of you, followed by Tony soon after.
“Y/L/N! You made it!” the billionaire cheered, patting you forcefully on the shoulder, “here I was thinking you were going to blow us all off.”
“It was a consideration,” you shrugged, though of course you would never miss an opportunity to see Natasha dressed in her best.
“I’m hurt, truly,” was all he said before wandering off again, seemingly looking for more people to impress.
“And then there were four,” Clint commented, “where’s Maria? It’s like an old SHIELD reunion.”
“I hope without the HYDRA this time.”
Hours later, Maria had come to join you, along with Helen Cho and the remaining Avengers, to crash on the couches and eat the takeout Clint had ordered. The night was at its end, so energetic conversations shifted into private murmurs – you were pretty sure Helen had fallen asleep – until Clint’s mockery of Mjolnir drew everyone’s attention back, waiting to see how the god reacted.
To your surprise, Thor only laughed, then held out his arm, “please, be my guest.”
“Really?” Clint hopped up with an eagerness he hadn’t shown since his wedding day. Despite the jokes made at his expense, he grabbed the grip, pulled, and…nothing happened. Thor reiterated the worthiness requirement but that only inspired the others to give it a go: one by one (or 2 at once in Tony and Rhodey’s case) the Avengers lined up to test their strength, each one failing.
“Widow?” Bruce offered, after an almost embarrassing attempt at it himself, but she declined, leaning towards you instead.
“Oh no, that’s not a question I need answered.”
Soon, all conversations derailed into theories and defences, jokes and accusations, until a high pitched whir interrupted all of that. There was no time to fix the issue before it stopped, giving way to rhythmic clunking approaching from behind.
“Worthy?” came an ominous voice. You turned to see a dilapidated Iron Legionnaire, limping towards the group. “No. How could you be worthy?” You were on your feet by then, exchanging brief glances with the others before you turned back to the robot. “You’re all killers.”
Steve stepped forward. Tony called for JARVIS. Nobody took their eye off of the mechanical puppet. Natasha hovered her arm behind her in search of you.
“I’m sorry, I was asleep. Or, I was a-dream.” The legionnaire continued, a full soliloquy that the team only rarely dared interrupt.
“Who sent you?” Thor challenged, and the machine answered back – with a recording of Tony’s voice.
“Ultron,” came Bruce’s realisation. Both you and Natasha turned to him, curious about a name you didn’t know; particularly when the mechanism – ‘Ultron’ – confirmed it. A glance around the room confirmed something for you too: the whole atmosphere had changed, and everyone felt it; Thor tightened his hold on his hammer, Maria readied her gun, and Steve searched for his shield.
“I’m ready, I’m on a mission.”
“What mission?”
“Peace in our time.”
The wall erupted into shrapnel as the Iron Legion took Ultron’s cue to attack; you caught only microseconds of the action before Natasha tackled you to the ground and out of the robots’ path. Your girlfriend pressed on top of you did little to help your cognition, and a flying table and Steve made it hard to keep pace, but you counted at least 3 robots in the air.
Few people had thought to bring weapons to a party in their home, leading to a struggle of hand to hand combat between man and machine, all just a delay before Thor could get a hit. When he destroyed the final Ultron – the main Ultron – you nearly collapsed from the exhaustion of it all; it had been some time since your last field mission.
“The sceptre is gone.”
“One of the legionnaires; it flew out just before the fight ended.”
Thor growled and flew out of the shattered window. Meanwhile, Tony and Bruce muttered between themselves, then made for the lab without another word.
“Hold on-” Steve commanded. You met Maria’s eye, anticipating another argument.
“No, I’m not gonna hold on,” Tony snapped, “I have work to do, but you could be a dear and bring that suit with us if you’re going to help.”
Steve followed his pointed finger, then wordlessly picked up the destroyed husk of Ultron and followed Bruce and Tony to the lab. With a shrug and exchanged glances, you and the others followed along too. Clint dropped to the back; walking alongside you and Natasha, he kept his voice low, “I guess we’re staying here for the next few days then.”
“No rest for the wicked,” came Natasha’s reply.
“Should’ve gone home when I had the chance.”
Natasha shivered by your side, the lab was colder than the party had been, but the whole building had cooled significantly thanks to the giant holes in the wall. You offered her your blazer but the spy waved you off and pulled one of her own jackets out from under a desk; you tilted your head to pose the silent question.
“All our work is gone,” Banner announced before you got a reply. You looked up to see him at his computer, searching through whatever he could find. “Ultron cleared out. He used the Internet as an escape hatch.”
Next thing you knew, Natasha was also gone, searching through files of her own. You tilted your head at her again. “He’s been in everything. Files, surveillance. Probably knows more about us than we knew about each other.” You didn’t miss how her eyes fixed on you, or how Clint’s hand fell on his phone: you all had secrets you didn’t want exposed.
“He’s in your files, he’s in the internet. What if he decides to access something a little more exciting?”
“Nuclear codes.”
“Nuclear codes. Look, we need to make some calls.”
After an attack on the Avengers' home – the first in 3 years – the mood was understandably sour, but it only got more sombre as the team discussed the semantics of Ultron’s plan for ‘extinction’, all building up to JARVIS’s destruction. Things had never felt so hopeless. Nor did you realise until now how much you'd considered the sentient AI a friend; the devoted keeper of your and Natasha's secret.
From then on, for the rest of the evening, the events of the night all seemed to happen around you. The fights and plans and arguments; you knew you'd agreed to certain things, but nothing truly felt clear until Natasha put her hand on the small of your back. Your head snapped up and you met her concerned eyes. “I'm okay,” you reassured, before she could even ask.
Her gaze continued to survey every detail of your face, and you knew from her pursed lips that you had failed to convince her. “Let's go to my room,” she announced, and only then did you realise that she'd already led you out into the corridor to be alone.
You nodded, and she led you down, never faltering in her hold of you until you passed the threshold of her room.
“Bigger night than you expected, huh?” Natasha said with a forced laugh.
“Yeah.” You were in Natasha's closet now, looking through all the clothes you had left there. “You're not sleeping tonight, are you?”
The redhead sighed, as if she thought she'd gotten away with it, before she murmured a ‘no’. A pair of sweatpants, a t-shirt, and a hoodie landed on her bed, and you saw her look of confusion before you went back in to look for a set of your own.
“If you're going to stay up, you might as well change into something more comfortable. And if you're going to stay up, I'm staying up with you.”
“You don't have to-”
“The quicker this is sorted, the quicker we can rest easy, right?”
She nodded.
“So let's get started.”
—:::——::-————>◇<—————::——:::—
All through the night and well into morning, the two of you sat in bed piecing together any clues. Ultron had the wealth of the internet at his disposal in seconds, while you were left to a slow trawl through anything deemed relevant.
Bit by bit, you pieced together a plan, but it was only after joining the other Avengers to talk through findings in the morning that any progress was made. All from Ultron's unintentional clue.
“Where is this guy now?”
“Johannesburg, last I heard.”
“Let's go ask some questions.”
With the edge of your foot, you lightly nudged Natasha, you sign asking her to stay back even as the other Avengers filtered out of the room.
“Get some sleep, alright? I know you've dealt with worse, but it would make me feel better to know you'd had some rest – especially if you run into the Maximoffs; Maria told me what they’re capable of.”
“I will,” Natasha smiled. She surveyed the room and, seeing nobody else around, planted a light kiss to your lips. “Take care of yourself too; I'll be back before you know it!”
And with that, she hurried the others to grab her mission uniform and filter onto the quinjet. You, meanwhile, followed Maria to the mission HQ and called in to the Avengers’ jet. The mission plan for this one was brief: you found Klaue’s exact location and sent it to Tony, they would question his access to vibranium, and be prepared to fight in case Ultron or the Maximoffs decided to enquire about the same thing at the same time.
From then on, it was just a matter of waiting and resting until the quinjet touched down in South America, where you were next needed to ensure the mission ran smoothly.
One by one, the Avengers' suit cameras flickered onto the screens before you, giving you and Maria an insight into the scene before them.
“I think we're in for a fight,” Natasha muttered, referring to the streams of workers escaping the boat which you knew to be Klaue's.
“Stay on the plane, Bruce; code green will be a last case measure in an enclosed space like that.”
The scientist nodded, then the rest of the team filtered in. Steve took command on the scene, bringing Tony and Thor with him to confront the robot, and left Natasha and Clint to the stealth, hiding in the shadows to provide back up if everything went south.
Nerves ran through you as you watched their confrontation with the machine. It was also your first proper look at the Maximoffs – neither seemed particularly intimidated while staring down the Avengers, but you saw the anger in their eyes.
Then, within a second, the sides clashed: Tony was thrown against the wall, more robots came in to fight Steve and Thor one on one, and the Maximoffs used their powers to interrupt.
“The twins keep stepping back,” you noticed, calling it in through the comms.
“They're new to this, probably don't know where to get involved.”
“I'm not sure.” You kept your mind at work, but unless you worked out their thought processes, there was nothing for you to do or say.
Natasha and Clint were brought into the fight in the meantime, attacking the enemies who came their way in order to keep the fight contained to the ship. A full firefight ensued between Klaue’s men, the Ultron bodies, and the Avengers; nothing much changed on your screens until Thor paused, still in between fights, and turned to his right where the girl – Wanda – stood.
“Thor?” Maria checked in. He didn’t put up a fight against her and only watched as she walked away. “What’s happened?”
She got no reply.
“Thor. Status report.” Steve tried. Communications had been patchy; you struggled to get through to Bruce, so it wasn’t out of the question that Thor would have the same issues.
“The girl tried to warp my mind,” he finally replied, “take special care; I doubt a human could keep her at bay. Fortunately, I am mighty.” He trailed off; his teammates might have assumed he had finished and returned to the fight, but you saw instead that his steps had slowed, and he looked around for sights that weren’t there. Tony had done similar back in Sokovia, while Maria’s files of the Maximoffs’ targets described the same sight: even the mighty can fall to the Sokovian’s powers.
“Thor is out of action,” you spoke into the comms; you received no protests from the god himself, so you could only assume he was beyond reaching too. “Watch out for Wanda Maximoff.”
Despite your warning, you were forced to watch as more Avengers fell victim to the Maximoff’s ploy: Steve was knocked into Wanda’s path, Natasha was caught unaware coming down a stairwell, and Clint – well, Clint avoided the mind control, only to be knocked through glass by the other twin.
“Whoever's standing, we gotta move! Guys?”
“Tony’s got Ultron; the others are down,” you told him, “get Natasha, she’s down the corridor from you. Just get everyone out.”
“Good plan,” Maria confirmed, thankfully not noticing how you only sent Clint to check up on Natasha, “Ultron just mentioned Banner so get ready for a quick evac.”
“Natasha, I could really use a lullaby,” Tony said. You checked his camera; the Hulk was on the loose, and angrier than you’d ever seen.
“Well, that's not gonna happen. Not for a while.” Natasha’s head lulled against his hand, totally unresponsive to the world around her. Even with the hostiles gone, you were thankful she had Clint by her side; she wouldn’t want anyone else to see her that way.
Your head snapped up when Maria next spoke, “we need to get everyone to safety.” You nodded wordlessly and got to work setting up evacuation orders, sending in paramedics, and arranging the legal documents as you watched the chaos unfold; all the while, you kept an eye on Natasha, heart tugging at the fear in her eyes, even as she slowly came to her senses.
By the fight’s end, your work had tripled and you knew you’d be running damage control well into the morning, while the Avengers had gained a hostile press, so they wouldn’t be coming home – Natasha wouldn’t be coming home – until they fixed this.
“Y/N?” Clint called you privately, after Maria had briefed them all of the consequences.
“Yeah?”
“Tracking is off, right? Cameras too?”
“Both off. You’re untraceable; even to us.”
“Good. I’m taking them to the farm, so I just- after SHIELD, you know-”
“I get it, you can’t be too careful with these things. Say hi to everyone for me, yeah? And look after Nat while I can’t.”
“Will do. I’ll see you later, Y/N.”
Clint hung up, leaving you in the silence of the empty room. Maria had gone out to take private calls of her own, and the other residents were now forbidden from returning. You returned to your work with a sigh –  so much for the time off.
Next Part
—:::——::-————>◇<—————::——:::—
Series Taglist: @fairychev @catswag22 @sapphosclosefriend @romanoffsgal @taliiiaasteria @saraaahsstuff @blacklightsposts @automaticdinosaurtaco @dyslexic-dreamer
General Taglist: @canvascoloredin @fxckmiup @wizardofstories
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nataliasquote · 3 months
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Masterlist
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Welcome to my masterlist! Alongside my work on Wattpad and AO3, you can find all my mini series and oneshots linked down below. I usually only write for Natasha Romanoff and occasionally Yelena Belova, but feel free to send in any requests. But no smut, I’m not comfortable with that :)
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Natasha Romanoff | Series
[F = fluff, A = angst, H = hot af ]
⧗ Double the Trouble AU | WandaNat x daughter: [F] Natasha and Wanda have their work cut out raising twin girls. But despite the struggles and the arguments, there is nothing that would break the bond this family has created
part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5
Canon oneshots:
A Day Out: [F] summer and sunshine calls for family trips out. To the zoo, naturally[2.9k words]
Groceries: [F] Natasha volunteers to do the weekly shop. Mundane, perhaps, but with two babies, things are never smooth sailing [1.4k words]
Cuddles: [F] a tipsy Y/n only wants one thing when she comes home from a party- Natasha’s hugs. And who is Natasha to refuse cuddles from her teenagers? [800 words]
New Families: [F] Natasha was content keeping her little family to herself. But Yelena and Melina weren’t. Which is how the family of four find themselves in Ohio, resurfacing memories for Natasha and challenging the three year olds in a whole new environment. Isla loves it, Y/n… not so much [4.4k words]
⧗ My Songbird AU | Natasha x Willow (O!C): It’s the 70s. Final summer of high school. Why not spend it getting high, partying and sneaking off with your girlfriend in a town that is so disapproving of anything deviating from the norm.
Mood board | part 1 [F]
⧗ Back in Time | Winterwidow x daughter: Natasha and Bucky’s daughter seeks comfort in her Aunt Wanda as her parents go missing on a mission. She doesn’t ask for much, she only wants to see them again.
part 1 [F] | part 2 [A]
Natasha Romanoff | Oneshots
⧗ Promises: [A] Natasha and Anastasia didn’t know love… not until they found it in each other. But the Red Room was cold, in more ways than one [2.6k words]
⧗ Ghost of You: [F + A] Learning to move on after Natasha’s sacrifice is the hardest thing in the world [3.2k words]
⧗ Lost in the Fire | f1 AU: [A] A horrific crash tests Natasha’s nerves to the limit as she has no choice but to sit back and watch from the garage. Her girlfriend and her sister push themselves for that all important win. [4.5k words]
⧗ I Will Rescue You | natasha romanoff x adopted daughter reader: [F + A] An alert from the Red Room sends Natasha, Yelena and Bucky on a last minute mission. But what they find is far from expected… [3.7k words]
⧗ Can’t You See This is Breaking Me: [A] Natasha isn’t quite ready to give her entire life for the woman she loves [5.2k words]
⧗ Tattoos For Troubled Minds: [F] Natasha struggles to trust anyone when it comes to touching her body. But that becomes rather difficult when a tattoo idea comes into her mind that she just can’t shake [3.6k words]
⧗ Midnight: [A] Natasha has never learned how to rest, and at midnight is where she is most vulnerable [1.1k words]
⧗ I Know What You Are: [A] The bane of Natasha’s existence had finally slipped up but when sent to eliminate her, feeling get in the way far too easily. [5.9k words]
⧗ Mustang | cowgirl Nat AU: [H] The mayor’s daughter. A bounty hunter. One has freedom, the other does not. But will one fleeting night be enough to convince Natasha to leave everything she’s ever known behind? [4.3k words]
⧗ Is It All For Nothing?: [A] You just want a friend. Is that so bad? How is it fair that everyone else gets one but you. What did you do that was so wrong? [1.3k words]
⧗ Midas Touch | Maid!Natasha: [F + A] no amount of money will ever save a broken marriage or a broken woman. But maybe the right person can turn everything she touches into gold and this time won’t be cursed to break everything she cares about. [7.1k words]
⧗ Welcome To My Head At Midnight | song fic: [A] Natasha Romanoff is her own worst enemy and maybe this fight isn’t one she’s so sure she can win. [2k words]
Yelena Belova | Oneshots
⧗ For Her: [F + A] Yelena tries to find the balance between spending christmas with her girl and tracking down Clint Barton… [1.7k words]
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Ch 2 Acrophobia: Fear of heights.
Acrophobia: Fear of heights.
Pairings: Wandanat x R
Word count: 1.9K
Summary: The helicarrier is too high for your linking and you refuse to go on deck. Steve drags you out onto the deck for a mission and you cry and nat hurries to take you back inside knowing your fear.
TW: dry heaving, panic attack, flashback, hyperventilating, fainting, past trauma (mentioned), themes of isolation, themes of fear, Steve being oblivious(haha), HYDRA (yep it’s a TW),
A/n TIMELINE DOESN’T MATCH CANON COMPLIMENT CUZ WANDAS ON THE HELICARRIER
Normally it was fine. You could simply pretend it was fine at least. You stayed below deck. Never going up there. The whole base never went too high that you couldn’t see the ground, so it was usually fine. Except now it wasn’t. Of course, it wasn’t.
Fury had decided that instead of dealing with the storm like a normal person would. He had ordered the whole Helicarrier to go above the clouds. Which in your opinion was the stupidest thing he had ever done. It was a death sentence. Now you actively refused to leave your room. Fear was the main reason. Heights were never your thing. Not since you were a kid. Of course, HYDRA tried everything to beat it out of you, a solider that can't do heights wasn’t a solider at all was what you were told. Growing up in hydra was hard. Learning to trust was harder. The only one you trusted was Natasha. But she was either too busy to notice the problem or simply didn’t care. You hoped it was the first. Nobody else knew. Hydra had instilled a deep fear of inadequacy. That if the team or the director found out you would simply be kicked off the team. That was what you feared. Losing your new family like you had lost your old one kept yoi awake at night. Long long into the night.
You had been lounging on your bed when a voice came over the system.
“Avengers report to the deck. Agent Romanoff, Stark, Rogers, Banner, Barton, Maximoff and L/n.” The voice said and you knew you were screwed. Sure, they hadn’t noticed your absence over the last few days, and you could survive off the food you had stashed in your room for emergencies. But you had all the windows covered in your room, there was no evidence you were even in the sky at all. And you liked it that way. Anything else and you may end up a panicked mess on the floor. You sucked a deep breath knowing if you didn’t go, they would come after you. Part of you wanted to stay, hope they send nat and then fake an illness or something. The fear of the team ridiculing and shunning you was too much. You knew you simply had to suck it up but that was easier said than done. Slipping on your boots you tried to steady your shaking hands. Hydras attempts seemed to only reinforce your fears. Throwing you out a plane isn’t exactly proven exposure therapy but that had tried regardless.
Shaking the memory from your mind you placed you trembling hand on the doorknob. The safety of your room seemed too good to leave. Feeling your breathing pick up you closed your eyes and steadied it. In a moment of fleeting courage, you opened the door quickly. You had barely stepped a half foot out the door before you peered into the hall, seeing the big window leading to nothing but clouds and blue sky you slammed the door shut. Screw the meeting. You thought. You pressed your back to the door and held your head in your hands pulling your knees to to your chest and rocking slightly to give yourself s rhythm to steady your breathing too. After around fifteen minutes you were breathing normally when a knock sounded on the door. Three short raps. In a moment of panic, you called out.
“Im sick leave me alone.” It was a pathetic excuse, but it was all you could think of with your mind spinning at the idea of having to go back out there. Feeling the door move you scrambled away from it until your back was pressed against the bed as it swung open. Steve stood there looking unimpressed.
“Firstly, why are you on the floor and second you don’t look sick. We need you on deck L/n. You can’t simply avoid doing work forever.” He said his arms folded. He was clearly frustrated and had mistaken your fear for laziness. Before you could open your mouth, he seemed to have had enough. Grabbing your wrist, you struggled in his hold as he began dragging you into the hall. You slammed your eyes shut breathing and chest feeling tight and restricted. You pulled away in his grip, but his super strength was having none of it. Tears began to fall down your cheeks, but he hadn’t once looked back at you simply dragging you through the halls head held high. Many agents shot you odd looks but held their tongues knowing the repercussions for insulting a higher-ranking agent. Fury didn’t like bullies as much as Steve, which seemed rather ironic right now. You went limp your feet going on autopilot from years of conditioning to follow him. Often you were dragged by shackles, but a wrist wasn’t uncommon either. Hydra played over in your mind. Steve morphing between your shield college and a hydra agent, the one with cruel eyes and a tight-lipped smile. His hair flickered between black and blonde, and your eyes closed again out of fear. Fear it had all been a dream. Fear you had never left. You choked back sobs. Each sob was a punishment. And from what you could tell this was already heading south fast.
By the time Steve pulled you onto the deck you were dizzy from the lack of oxygen, your surroundings spinning. Nat was there and you prayed she would save you. The hydra agent was gone now, it was just Steve. But your fears were only getting worse. At least in the flashback you couldn’t see just how high the Helicarrier was. The railings seemed too small. Useless. Your stomach was doing flips from both the fear and the dizziness. Your head was spinning, and you felt lightheaded.
You missed Wanda elbowing Natasha in the ribs, her powers picking up on your distress and loud thoughts. Nat looked over at the younger redhead and Wanda nodded her head to you. Nat was quickly spurred into action. She rushed over and detangled you from Steve’s grip. Fairly harshly. She was mad at his lack of care or concern towards your current situation.
She scooped you into her arms and made quick work of hurrying back to the lower decks. You whined buried your face in the crook of her neck, tears streaming onto her uniform. She rubbed her hand up and down your arm as you saw her mouth moving but couldn’t decipher the words.
“Breathe Y/n. You need to breathe sweetheart. Your safe love. Your safe here.” She repeated over and over exceedingly worried at how short and sharp your breathing was.
After a moment you screwed your eyes up and leaned away from nat to dry heave. She slowed her movements, so she didn’t jostle you as much. Luckily you hadn’t had any real food in days after being holed up in your room. You hadn’t even noticed Wanda had followed you until you felt the rumble of Nat’s chest as she spoke to the witch before the cool tingly feeling of the red magic wrapped around your mind and your vision dipped as she knocked you out. Or at least you had thought she did. However, after she had been given the go ahead from Nat, she tried to help calm you down. Yet despite her magic not being a good idea, if you kept hyperventilating you were going to pass out and they wanted to avoid that. It was rare for you to panic this badly, but the flashback and fear had triggered you something awful.
And despite Wanda’s best efforts you passed out in Natasha’s arms. Nat slowed and adjusted her grip to support you head more to stop it lolling around. She swore softly as she and Wanda hurried you back to your room. Wanda stopped in the doorway as she saw the food plates and messy room.
“So, this is why she hasn’t been around. She hasn’t left her room” Wanda said slowly as Nat carefully set you down on the rumpled sheets.
“Yeah, I was too stupid to notice. She trusted me. She trusted Steve and we both failed her” Nat said shaking her head.
“Nat you know it's not your fault. Don’t beat yourself up.” Wanda said.
“I know but i still feel like we let her down.” She said huffing a sigh.
“Right now, we just need to look after her. Nobody is to blame. Expect maybe Steve because he’s a bit oblivious.” She said shrugging and nat gave a forced sounding laugh as the guilt continued to gnaw at her stomach. You had looked so helpless and afraid in her arms. She had only ever really seen that a couple times before. After or during the flashbacks she knew you had or when they had first rescued you from hydra. She had sworn each time she would protect you and now she felt like she had failed.
She moved over and pulled herself onto you bed, gently guiding your head into her lap. You screwed your eyes up and she gently tapped your cheek to rouse you. Wanda sat to your left watching with kind eyes.
“Hey baby girl. It’s ok.” Nat said and you squeezed her hand. Even half-awake with a pounding headache you could read Nat like no other.
“It's not your fault.” You said and Nat smiled softly.
“Don’t worry about that right now love, just take some deep breathes for me. Do you need your weighted blanket love?” She asked.
“N-no. Just…” you trailed off.
“What is it? You know I’ll get you anything you need.” Nat said softly as she patted your knee with an equally gentle and tender touch.
“C-can you lay with me. Just for a bit?”
“We’ll stay with you as long as you need y/n/n” Wanda said, and the two girls curled around you as you grounded yourself on their touch. Everything would be ok.
“Im fine. Steve…”
“Steve what baby?” Wanda asked gently.
“Steve just… he triggered a flashback when he grabbed m-me, and I was already afraid from being up this high. It just… it brought a lot back that I don’t want to r-remember.” You said exhaling as shaky breath. Nat squeezed you tightly in a hug.
“I’ll kill him.” She joked and you laughed quietly.
“No. All I need I have right her on this bed.” You said softly and the two women beamed at you. Feeling the tips of your ears heat with an undeniable blush you buried your face in your pillow as the two women cooed at you.
“Just hug me dammit.” You said and they complied. Maybe this is what you had been needing for those past few days. But now they were here everything was feeling a little more manageable.
MASTERLIST
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romanoffsbish · 1 year
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Through the Eras
Natasha Romanoff x Fem(Stylist)!Reader
Natasha was a master of disguise, she didn’t need any help in that department, but Fury had a different plan, and she didn’t feel a need to push back when she saw it unfolding. Aka, Natasha is a simp for R, and this is them falling in love over a decades time.
2011-IM2, 2012-OG Avengers, 2014-Winter Soldier, 2016-Civil War, 2018-IW, 2023-EG
All Canon besides EG.
Warnings: Violence, Death, Grief, but like mostly happy/fluffy.
Smut: Bottom!Nat, Oral/Strap(N), Praising.
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2002
Natasha was hesitant about being in America, the land where a donut could be bigger than the size of someone's head, and where majority of experiences were rooted in fake niceties. Nothing about the foreign country felt like home to her, not that she knew much about such a feeling, but she knew it was best to get acclimated seeing as how she hadn't been given much of a choice. Either she give her life away to this organization, or she die at their hands.
Upon entering the SHIELD base her green eyes were tracking any and all movements as she trailed behind Agent Barton, the man she swears fealty to for sparing a wretch such as herself from a perceivably deserved death.
The agency is like nothing Natasha had ever seen before, majority of the agents here wore basic black suits with ties like you'd see on an individual working a 9-5, not so much at a government agency full of professional spies and assassins as she knew it to be.
Back in the Red Room the men employed by General Dreykov were almost always sporting full tactical suits like the cowards that they were to keep the little girls in line, and to surround the man for safety purposes. Here though, as Clint escorts her to the man in charge she doesn't see him with a team, no, it's simply a man in a trench coat, wearing an eye patch with a raven haired woman to his right.
"Romanoff.," the odd man with the eye patch nods at her stoically., "Barton here has decided to take a chance on you, don't make us here at Shield regret honoring that choice.," his hand reached for hers, she observed the gesture with hesitation, but eventually she met his attempt.
"Welcome to Shield Agent Romanoff, Hill here will escort you to your quarters, good luck."
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2011
After nine years Natasha had yet to find the people of New York bearable, but she's learned to make due, and has acclimated very well as a good spy is trained to do, but moreover she had found she began to crave the perceived American dream. Over time she proved her expressed loyalty to the Director, as well as her mission partner turned family, and successfully crawled up ranks until she reached a Level 6.
With climbing ranks came more respect and then with that came new responsibilities. For years now she'd listened to Nick drone on about his determination to build a group of remarkable people to fight the battles that the bulk of your everyday people never could.
"Seriously Fury?," she scoffed while looking over the many files., "This guy is remarkable?"
"Stark is many things: a billionaire, arrogant, even a pompous asshole, but if you can look beyond the overly jelled back hair, and childish antics you'll see he's untouchably intelligent."
"Is that why he's letting himself die then?"
"Listen, Romanoff, I did not assign you this case for you to question my judgment.," he groaned, and ran his hand over his face., "You're here because I need eyes on the inside, and someone who can break him down until he accepts our help, and joins the good fight."
"So I'm your eye candy?," she scoffs, arms now folded across her chest as she glares at him., "Look, it's not ideal, but in part, yes you are."
"I don't appreciate such a deduction, I'm a skilled agent.," he nods., "Yeah, which is why you'll be gathering me intel, and helping the pitiful man who's too weak to help himself."
Natasha continued to glare, but Nick just moved passed it as he's grown used to her pushback over the years., "You're on your own in the field, but Coulson's on standby, and I've assigned Y/L/N to assist you when need be."
"The agency's hairdresser?"
"Now who's deducing?," you snarked from the door as you strolled into the room., "I also do your makeup, pick out your clothing, and keep your mind stimulated when you're bored."
Natasha glared at you for your interruption, but it was in vain, she always found your presence rather pleasant, even if she's only ever been able to experience you in passing thus far.
"I take it the two of you got it from here then?"
After you both nodded at the director he left the room smiling, and Maria smiled back., "Playing matchmaker now, are we Nick?"
Natasha's face never wavered when you made decisions for her, she was not one to push back outwardly if she didn't know you well, but you could detect the faux indifference in her eyes.
"Well, you seem to not be down for the bob, or the fringe look.," you called her bluff., "What about if I were to make you bald, super sexy.," she unexpectedly smirked at your teasing.
"Not sure Stark's into the bald type, have you even thought about that?," you grimaced., "Now Natasha, why would I ever care about a mans opinion? I don't usually think of men, let alone their opinions on a clients appearance."
Natasha's stoic expression returned as you spoke of her so professionally, she wanted to frown, but she knew it wasn't right since you were also here for a job. Now she's starting to understand the whole eye candy trope, as she's essentially procured you here as her very own.
"How about we darken your natural shade a little bit, and add extensions?" you held up the desired shade, and the glint in her eyes had you sold, even if all she did was shrug indifferently.
Natasha's body stiffened when your hands fell on her hips to turn her., "Something is off.," she frowned., "Gee, thanks Y/L/N.," you smirked, then made a 'aha' noise, spinning her back around before dropping your hold on her.
"Well?"
"Oh, sorry.," you smiled sheepishly., "Tuck the shirt into the pants, it'll be more form fitting."
"That was your big save?," she chuckled while doing exactly what you said, a smile on her face as she silently agreed with your judgment call.
"Don't mock me Romanoff, or I'll make sure to give your nose extra attention with my blush."
Natasha smirked cockily, a snide joke on the tip of her tongue, but instead of speaking, her breath was hitching when you straddled her lap, and nonchalantly began her makeup.
"Uh, Y/L/N.," you hummed, makeup sponge in hand as you prepared to apply her concealer., "Is there a reason you're sat in my lap?"
"There are no other places to sit in this tiny bathroom work space Romanoff, and there's no way I'm standing on my feet for over an hour.," your answer was playfully spoken, but serious.
"An hour?," you stifled a laugh at the sight of her scrunched features., "It's just make up."
"Do I question your fighting process?"
"I guess not.," she softly replied, her mind was a bit too focused on how you were so close she could feel your breaths to really push back, plus, she didn't really mind the proximity.
She became so distracted by you that she failed to hear the way your breath hitched after her arms unconsciously moved from dangling by her uncomfortably to wrapped around you.
"Done.," you swiped the stick over her lips, and stood up, much to Natasha's disappointment.
"How do I look?," she asked, and you turned to her with a playful smile., "Like a million bucks, you can say thank you now like a civilized person, or later after you wow the billionaire."
Natasha smirked, it excited her a bit to hear a tinge of jealousy in your tone, it told her this whole connection wasn't exactly one sided.
"Thank you krasivaya.," she left a soft kiss to your cheek, your knees nearly buckled, and you were praying for your sake she didn't see that., "Natasha, your lips weren't dry yet.," you chose to scold her to take the heat off of your bodies previous betrayal just before catching her off guard as you gripped her chin, and reapplied.
"Good luck."
"Why would I need luck when I apparently look like a million bucks?" she mused., "The money hungry fool will be under my spell in seconds." a playful wink was thrown your way as she left, but you were smart enough to know she was telling the truth, she had the kind of effortless beauty that could be used to topple regimes, and to your misfortune, your sensitive heart.
"What's your name lady?," Tony Stark, her op, immediately shouted at her as she entered, and she turned to him with a neutral expression., "Rushman. Natalie Rushman."
You giggled., "James Bond, really? You're such a cliche Romanoff," you could just feel the eye roll she was likely being forced to internalize all the while wondering why she agreed to your unhelpful proposal of wearing ear pieces.
Natasha wanted to smirk at your comment, because she was very much a cliche in this moment, but she had to remain in character as the "hot woman" from legal, and to get in Tony's good graces she agreed to a sparring match with his security guard, Happy Gilmore.
"You ever boxed before?"
"I have, yes."
"Oh boy, is he in for a treat.," you giggle, and Natasha smiled at the sound, and fortunately for her it seemed to fit in the moment anyways.
"What, like the Tae Bo? Booty Boot Camp? Crunch? Something like that?"
"Oh, no the fuck he didn't.," you verbalized aloud what her very expression did, you heard her clear her throat, and frowned, the woman you knew would've given him what for, but you knew she was forced to remain cordial here.
Tony called out to her, causing her to deviate her attention momentarily, and for Happy to believe that this was a teaching moment.
"Rule number one, never take your eye off your opponent."
"Rule number one, don't be a misogynistic douche.," you grumbled, and to your extreme delight you could hear Natasha grunt, and all other parties either shrieking or groaning.
"Atta girl."
Natasha rushed out shortly after the incident, and after dropping off the paperwork in her hand she made her way back to your hotel.
"I took the liberty of ordering room service.," you said as soon as she plopped beside you on the bed in her casual clothes., "I also used the company card to rent Moonraker for you."
Natasha slapped your arm lightly., "You're going to hold this against me for life, huh?"
"Ooh, I'm a for lifer?," she smiled softly at your tease, it was too soon to know really, but her heart fluttered at the idea of a forever with you.
"Who else will do my hair and makeup? Me?" she scoffs playfully. "I'm too high ranked to be expected to do such mundane, easy things."
"For that cruel dig I am eating the bonus chocolate covered strawberry!" you grumbled, she cackled as she swiped it from the tray and was met with your glare. "No, I don't think so."
Instead of chasing her down you laid out like a starfish on the mattress. "I heard the couch is comfortable, I hope you find that true," she gasped at your insinuation, then if only to show off she lifted you effortlessly, laid down beside you, and pressed play. "I'm sorry Y/L/N."
"I won't hold it against you Rushman," you rolled to your side, then faced the screen just the same. "Good, I kinda need you on my side."
——
The following day you were expected to make her look fancy, so you set her up in a red dress, and did a simple makeup look. "Have fun."
"Oh my, did I forget to tell you that you're coming with me," she looked at you innocently, but the glint in her eye screamed of mischief.
Your voice expectedly cracked, "What?"
"Pepper said I could bring a plus one, and Fury said I could bring you, so go get ready toots."
Natasha waited patiently on the edge of your shared bed on her phone, hardly listening as you grumbled from behind the closed bathroom door. "This is so uncool, I didn't bring anything fancy to wear," you peaked your sopping wet head out to pout at her in the hopes that you'd be spared going, but she held up a garment bag while smirking tauntingly, "Hurry up now malysh, we can't be late."
Natasha's hand settled over your hip as the two of you entered the venue together, you were in a black suit with a red dress shirt to match her dress, you looked like a couple, and the thought of the possibility made your skin burn, and it had your heart skipping with a doomed hope.
"Oh, who's this beauty?" Tony grasped your hand without asking, pulling it to his lips, and you grimaced as he pressed them to your hand. Natasha saw the disgusted look on your face, and instantly spoke. "This is Zoe Rushman."
"So beauty runs in the family then?" she shook her head, and pulled you even closer to her side. "No, it's a bit premature on the name, but she's my fiancé, and if the laws pass in our favor we'll be tying the knot next Spring."
Tony nodded, then took his leave to God knows where, and to be clear you surely didn't care.
"We're engaged?" Natasha spun you in front of her and leaned into your ear. "Yes, I will not subject you to Tony's flirting if I can avoid it."
"I thought you were meant to entice him."
"Not anymore, I already secured my spot, so really this is mutually beneficial." she mused, and you chuckled. "So I'm your arm candy?"
"Precisely," she kissed the corner of your lips, it felt real, but you reasoned it was for the sake of your story, so you shoved the feelings down.
"Natalie?!" you both turned to see a distraught blonde, you peered up at the small screen she was gawking at, you saw Tony racing in a car, then you saw a man with electricity tentacles also on the track. "Well that can't be good."
Natasha tended to a frantic Pepper, then she escorted you out of the venue. "Take her to the hotel," she instructed a shield agent, and you realized he must've already been on standby.
"Be careful Nat." She smirked. "I always am."
After working tirelessly to save Tony's image, she returned to the hotel at ten at night in desperate need of a shower, and some sleep. When she entered your shared space it was dark, and she made quiet work of tending to her needs before slipping in bed besides you.
"You're back.," you slurred, one eye flying open to confirm it was indeed the redhead., "I am."
"Did you get your dinner?"
Natasha smiled appreciatively, "I ate already, Pepper ordered us takeout, but thank you honey, I put it in the fridge for tomorrow."
You hummed, too tired to really respond, and Natasha watched you slowly fall back to sleep with a smile of pure adoration. A gasp left her lips only moments later though, her smile never dissipated, it morphed into a shocked one as you'd unconsciously scooted across the mattress and threw an arm around her waist.
"Good grief, you're going to kill me," she slid her arm underneath your neck, and allowed her other to lay over your body protectively., "And I'd die happy if you did," she whispered before allowing the unfamiliar comfort you brought her to help her fall asleep with ease.
A full nights rest was something incredibly foreign to her, but it consumed her tonight.
——
Natasha just left you downstairs, even with the last event ending in chaos she wanted you at this party with her, but first she had to assist Stark as was her job, "Do you know which watch you'd like to wear tonight Mr. Stark?"
"I'll give them a look," he sighed while fixing his shirt. "I should cancel the party, huh?"
"Probably," she turned to look at him, and brought him over a martini she'd prepared.
"Yeah, because it's uh—," he paused, and she promptly finished his thought, "Ill timed."
"Sends the wrong message."
"Inappropriate," Nat confirms with a sly smirk., "Is that dirty enough for you?"
He sipped it, then immediately deflected back to the watches, and you grimaced at the way she flirted so easily, a little reminder that this was all a ruse, and she wasn't yours to have.
Natasha sat besides him, not because she was interested in the man, but because she wanted to have a closer look at his declining state as collecting intel was part of her overall mission.
"It's hard to get a read on you, where are you from?" Tony asked while she applied some concealer to his marred up face. "Legal."
You snorted, and the redhead heard it, and could picture your eyes rolling right now.
"Can I ask you a question, hypothetically?" Natasha only stared at him, but he went for it anyways. "It's a bit odd, but if this was your last birthday party you were ever gonna have, how would you celebrate it?"
"I'd do whatever I wanted to do, with whoever I wanted to do it with," she followed her answer up with the clicking of her heels, but stopped as he asked a follow up question. "Like Zoe?"
"Precisely," she hoped you could hear the truth in her tone, but if you didn't she'd find a way to make it clear to you after this whole mission.
Before you could wipe away the hopeful smile Natasha was at your side, slipping your near empty glass from your hand to down it all. "Drinking on the job Natalie?" she smirked over your glass, "Have you met my boss?"
Natasha beamed as you giggled, because not only does the sound illicit a warmth within her, but she knew you understood that she meant Director Fury just as much as she did Tony.
With an elegance in her movements the redhead settled your glass down, and brought you onto the dance floor as a slow song played. There was a comfortability that you were shocked to find yourself feeling with her in such a short time frame. Natasha was always an enigma back at Shield headquarters, but now, out in the field she was easier to read.
Just like you she craved exhilaration, you found it out in the wilderness on off days, and in the salon mixing up products to transform people into whatever they wanted to become. Natasha found it on stealthy missions, where she was able to kick peoples asses, and make the world a safer place for all that inhabit it.
There was still an air of mystery to her, which you expect being so new to this undefined dynamic with her. You didn't expect all her walls to drop at once, but the fact that any have dropped tells you that she trusts you enough.
Before you could make an honest move, like kissing her as you dreamed, an actual wall fell.
Natasha quickly pulled your face to her chest, shielding you from the glass, and as soon as Rhodey said to get out, she was pulling you both to another room, and softly cupping your cheeks, "We need to get you out of here."
"I don't break that easily Nata-."
"Natalie!" you grimaced at the shrill voice of the angry blonde, and Nat softly groaned before turning to her cordially, "Miss Potts."
Before she could say much to Nat about her speculations, she was dragged away by Happy, and you were much the same by Natasha.
"I think I'm your bad luck charm," you mused from the passenger seat, and Natasha softly sighed as she parked the car, "No, I actually think you're much to the opposite Y/N."
The both of you entered the hotel, taking turns slipping out of your dresses, and when you sat down on the bed Natasha's eyes widened., "You're hurt?" you shrugged. "Occupational hazard," you turned to face her, heart melting at the show of genuine concern on her face, but the happy faded fast when her eyes hardened.
"No, you're the all around stylist, not an agent."
"I'm more than that," your voice was small, and she immediately regretted her choice of words. "I-I know, but you still had no business being out in the field, and it's my fault you were."
"I'm okay Nat, it's only a scratch, and if it were to have been more I have combat training."
The redhead left the room, and your shoulders deflated, but then she came back with a couple wine coolers, a soft smile and a first aid kit.
"Let's get you all patched up soldier."
Natasha frowned as you entered the Stark expo hand in hand, "I don't have a good feeling about this," she groaned, and you squeezed her hand. "Nat, we already committed to this whole fiancés facade, so until we're through with the mission here I'm coming along."
"I could've told Pepper you're sick."
"Who's sick?"
"I thought I had a cold, but turns out it's just allergies," you answered, and held your hand out for her to shake as you'd yet to introduce yourself yet even after seeing each other.
"Zoe right?," you nodded convincingly, "It's lovely to finally meet you, Natalie here speaks of you so fondly, I'm almost kinda jealous."
"Aww, baby, you talk to your boss about me?" Natasha's face tinted a light shade of pink at the painful, exposing moment, and you did all that you could to stifle your teasing laughter. "You're just a total sweetheart," you mused and followed your teasing words with a gentle kiss to the already blushing woman's cheek.
"Well, shall we get seated?" Natasha managed to pull it together enough to brush right passed the moment, and escort Pepper to her seat.
It doesn't take long after the exchange for shit to hit the fan, and after Natasha roughed up Tony's business rival the two of you were in a car with Happy on the way to save the day.
"When we arrive I need you to watch the perimeter, I'm gonna enter the facility and take down the target," Natasha instructs, and you go to glare at her but are shockingly met with her undressing, and then you felt the car swerving.
"Watch the road," you growled at the man in the drivers seat, then you lifted your suit jacket up to shield Natasha as she changed out of the black dress and into her body defining catsuit.
Natasha softly smiled, an intense wave of emotion filled her as you remained respectful, and didn't intentionally ogle her like she's used to, but a secret part of her wished for you to. However, she has no time to dwell on it as the car comes to a stop outside Hammer's base.
"Stay in the car," Nat barked at both of you.
"I'm not staying in the car."
"Dude. You should really listen to her," you mused, but in direct contrast you followed her into the building, and Happy trailed behind.
"Y/N what are you doing?" she asks in a huff while knocking two guys out at once. "You can't be in here, I don't want you getting hurt."
You rush passed her with an eye roll, taking out a man who was fast approaching with a punch to his throat, then another with your lipstick that she now knows is a high voltage taser.
"I was going to retouch my lips with that," she gasps with a lopsided smile directed at you.
"Good thing you didn't you little thief.," you tease back as you both pass the last remaining guy, and she just uses her pepper spray on him.
Natasha is quick to help Tony with the drones, then while they fight she shifts her attention over to you, "You trained with who exactly?"
"Hill."
Natasha nodded, "Makes sense then."
Her arms that were folded over her chest move to around your waist., "Thanks for the help," you hug her back, and she basically melts into you., "Anytime Nat, I'll do your hair, makeup, I'll dress you up, whatever you want, really."
"How about you undress me?” she teased, using a deep sultry tone on you, you shoved her away playfully, and she cackled while following you out of the room. "Y/L/N, come back!"
"Thank God you girls are okay," Happy shouts as the both of you approach unscathed, he himself in a state of disarray, and you scoff. “It's not us you should be worried about."
He glares at you, then shifts his attention to the redhead approaching from behind you. "Hey, Natalie, what you did here was impressive,” he gestures to the pile of bodies with a shy smile.
"Would you be interested in getting dinner?"
Natasha watched as your jaw and fists clenched in unison, and it inspired her to make a move. Her callous hand was gentle as it found yours, she unfurled your fingers, then slipped hers between yours. "No thanks, I'm spoken for."
A wide smile befell your face as she spoke, and in a swift switch of events it was you making a move, your hand dropped hers to grab her by the waist, and as you spun her to face you the other slid behind her neck. "Yeah, she is."
Happy cleared his throat before scurrying off, the tension in the room thick at the glare you sent his way right before you pulled Natasha into you for a heady kiss. A soft hmph left you when she spun you around and into a wall.
Natasha pulled away from you at the sound of another's pained groan, she smirked at the sight of you so flustered; blissfully unaware, and as beautiful as the first time she saw you.
"We should get out of here krasivaya," Nat grabbed your hand again, squeezing it softly to better get your attention. "Lead the way Nat.," you smiled dreamily, she pulled you along, and guided you into the back of an awaiting car.
Fury shook your hand, then sent you off with a wink that you failed to understand as you were finally moving to leave Shields headquarters.
"Wait!” Natasha took off after you, and her hand settled on your shoulder. "Would you like to get coffee with me sometime?” you smiled at the redhead as you turned to face her properly, she was uncharacteristically nervous, and that made you feel extra confident. "I just made out with you over many unconscious men, and now you're nervous to talk to me—how adorable."
Natasha's mouth opened, but then it closed as she tried to remember how to formulate actual words. "I-I'm not adorable Y/N/N, you are."
"You're even more adorable now that you've said that," you snickered, then reached out to softly move a stray hair behind her ear. "I'd love to get coffee with you Natasha, feel free to pick me up tomorrow morning before work."
"I don't have your address.," she called out as you already started walking off again, and you didn't even turn around as you shouted., "We both know that's not true Agent Romanoff."
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2012
You weren't a super spy yourself, but you didn't need to be to know the loud ding of your locked doors opening was because of a certain beauty.
"Natasha, I can get my own breakfast you know," you set the broom stick against the counter, and met her at the desk in your office. "Yeah, you can, but you shouldn't have to."
You shook your head with a fond smile, then accepted the warm beverage and croissant. "Thank you baby," you murmured over a bite of the buttery goodness, then you approached the pouting redhead as she reached for you.
"Are you excited to open the shop tomorrow detka?" she quickly pulled you into her warm embrace, and you nuzzled into her, knowing that she craved these reassuring affections. "Mostly," you admitted. "I'm kinda nervous."
"Why would you be nervous?"
"What if I open my doors and the sky falls?"
"Y/N, what's really going on, hm?" she softly swayed you, and placed a kiss to your forehead.
"What if I am not good enough to succeed?"
"Detka, now that's just ridiculous," your lover sighs softly as she works to pull you closer.
"You're plenty good enough, there's nobody else I'd ever let touch my hair," she confessed, "Nick knew that by the way, when he played matchmaker, and I went along of course because you were the woman of my dreams, and how else would I have gotten that close."
"Nat," she cut you off with a dizzying kiss, it was so intense that she was able to walk you back into your chair. "I'm dead serious detka."
"You're being honest?" she nodded, and you smiled widely. "I can't believe I was your first."
Natasha smirked, her dimple prominent as she absorbed your words, there were areas of truth to them, yes, you were her first hair stylist, but moreover, you were her first, and only love.
"Up until that mission I'd handled all of my own disguises, and yes, even as a level 6 agent I was able to work my own makeup brushes."
Your belly laughter filled the room, and your lover smiled as soon as it left you, if she were to only be made to hear your joy for the rest of her life she knows she'd die a happy woman.
"Hey, I have an idea," Natasha nudged your shoulder, then her hand gripped yours to pull you up to your feet without any explanation. Natasha settled herself down in one of your leather chairs with a lopsided grin as she met your gaze through the mirror and ran a hand through her unruly maine, "Have a ball."
It honestly surprised you how willing she was to be your guinea pig, her appearance really did mean a lot to her, but she seemingly trusted you enough to give you free reign with it.
Her current hair was a little passed shoulder length, and quite frankly overdue for a trim, but what you had in mind went beyond that.
Natasha followed your every instruction, and she did so happily, her sighs of gratitude proof that the way you scratched at her scalp as you washed and conditioned her hair was pleasing.
After you settled her down in the salon chair you practiced your customer service on her, "Ma'am, would you," she cut you off with a hand to the face. "Ma'am? Detka please..."
"Oh, my apologies, Miss picture perfect image of youth, would you care for a refreshment?"
Natasha smirked, "Much better, yes please."
Natasha graciously accepted the can of soda by pulling you in for an appreciative kiss, "Now don't you be letting the customers do that too."
You gasped, "Shit baby, do you think I should take off my 'Please kiss your stylist' apron?" She looked up at you unamused, her eyes were briefly casted down at your apron to ensure you were joking, and when she discovered you were she settled into the chair. "Chop, chop."
A roll of your eyes followed her play on words, you complied of course, but to make it more fun you spun her to face away from the mirror.
After you did the sizable chop you began to add layers to give it more volume, then you used your specialty scissors to give the ends texture. It took you about an hour to get her hair where you wanted, and from the back it looked great.
A long breath still left you when your hands no longer had something to manipulate, you were honestly nervous because it was far shorter than when she had walked in. Natasha had the fortune of being so beautiful that nothing could change that, but an outward opinion on her appearance didn't matter here, only hers did.
"Detka, you're making me nervous," she joked, and after a tense moment of silence she sighed, "I'm going to love it, I already feel tons lighter."
When you still refrained from spinning her around she stood from her seat, leaving you unable to face her reaction as she turned around. You still managed to do it though as you shut your eyes tightly to avoid the potential of a disappointed, and likely frowning Nat.
"It's perfect," she gasped, her hands were gentle as they moved you over a smidge so that she could see better. "Honey, open your eyes, and look at the smoke show that is on display," she shook your body like it was a limp noodle by her grip on your shoulders to emphasize the joy you should feel, and it actually paid off.
"Wow," you were genuinely elated as you opened your eyes, what you envisioned was so beautifully brought to life right before you. You didn't hesitate to run your hand through the much shorter red locks, appreciating the way that her natural wave showed through more prominently at this length. "You're beautiful."
Natasha surged forward, capturing your lips with hers, something she always did when she felt overwhelmed by you complimenting her. There was just something different about the way you said beautiful, your tone was always soft, and your eyes were even softer, as if you were seeing her for more than her physicality.
Which you were...
Just as you moved to deepen the affection, your tongue slowly sliding over hers, you were rudely interrupted by Natasha's obnoxious pager, and corresponding ringing of her cell. When combined that always meant she had to go, because Fury needed her for a mission.
"Absolutely not," she groaned, "What is it?"
"Agent Romanoff, always such a pleasure."
"Nick, I am unavailable, Y/N's opening day is tomorrow, can't you send someone else?"
"Unfortunately not Romanoff, it's connected to your mission in limbo, and if you don't seize the moment now you'll likely miss it entirely."
Natasha hung up on the director, it was her angered way of relenting on her stance, even if it was actually breaking her heart to say it.
"It's okay Natasha, it's just a salon opening."
"No, don't do that," she turned to face you, cupping your cheeks in her calloused hands. "You're so special Y/N/N, and the way you transform looks is amazing, it's life changing."
"Yeah, and the way you save the world is too," you leaned in to kiss her again, and the both of you made sure to savor the fleeting moment.
"I'll be back in time for a celebratory dinner."
"I'll be looking forward to it," you pressed your lips to hers for a chaste kiss. "Give them hell."
Natasha smirked against you, "I always do."
——
The world was a crazy place really, the general populous moves around in a state of blissful ignorance while atrocities happen under their noses. Rumors fly, but without any evidence they act as if the evil only exists in the stories. It's only in moments like now that they are able to get a glimpse through the cracks, and see that fables of other worlds are based in reality. 
Natasha stared up at the gigantic black hole in the sky in a disgusted sort of awe, it was a sight to marvel at—sure, but she wonders more how she got here in a matter of twenty four hours.
Yesterday morning she was being pampered by you, and by that evening she was tied to a chair with men who actually thought they had the upper hand on her, the notorious Black Widow.
Then after a panicked call from Coulson over Clint's well being she was exchanging her idiot Russian henchmen out for a ship full of equally as idiotic American men, with an aloof God in tow who couldn't set their egos aside long enough to see the bigger picture until it had to be blown up in front of their once smug faces.
After fighting her best friend, being chased by the monstrosity that is The Hulk, and losing Coulson, a dear friend of the redheads, she was already beyond exhausted, but rest was nary an option with aliens flying through a portal.
If they didn't pull it together soon the entire state of New York would likely meet the same fate as many other peculiar cities in the past.
Natasha wouldn't be letting that happen though, no matter what she would never let anything happen to you. Which is why she was first to offer finding out how to close the portal, effectively neutralizing the core threat here.
"Natasha, you seem distracted," the captain observed, and Natasha sighed in frustration. "My girlfriend," she paused as the man out of time dropped his shield out of shock. "Go on."
"Today was the day her shop was supposed to open, and I'm fucking terrified that she was in it as the fight broke out," she struggled to hold back her tears, "She didn't answer her phone, and I had no time to check on her." At the odd show of emotions from the reclusive spy Steve realized he needed to offer his support here.
"Listen, you make it to the top as planned, and I promise to go collect," he paused, and she smiled at just the thought of you. "Y/N."
"Please, don't let anything happen to her." he nodded, and with that she was off in the sky, chasing down the alien scum while the super soldier sprinted towards your quaint shop.
The bell rung out, and you jumped onto the intruder's back in an instant, ready to fight, but then you saw the patriotic get up, and knew he was not the enemy in this current predicament.
"Y/N?"
You slowly fell from his back, then rounded the man to face him. "Depends, what's it to you?"
"Natasha sent me after you," he relayed, and you rolled your eyes. "That woman, I swear, it's like she forgets I'm trained for this shit."
"You're an agent?" you shrugged. "Something more in between trained agent and stylist."
"I saw her tough resolve crumbling only a few minutes ago," he admits. "I honestly haven't known her more than a few hours, but she doesn't strike me as the type to break easily."
"She isn't," you whisper, then meet the man with a frown. "Take me to safety I guess."
He escorts you out, and it's when an alien runs by with its razor sharp talons ready to strike that he realizes you were safer indoors. "Uh," he turns you back around, then puts you in your office, using your bookshelf he blocks the window, then from outside your door he moves another shelf full of products in front of it.
"We'll come collect you shortly, Natasha is currently working on closing the blackhole."
"Okay!" you shout back amusedly, then you pull up Scandal on your laptop, and hope Nat forgives you for watching the next episode without her on account of emotional distress.
——
Natasha took the elevator down Stark's ginormous tower, then she ran to your shop without taking a moment to catch her breath after she had successfully closed the portal. Once she arrived she barged through the doors only to groan at her newfound obstacle.
"Are you watching Scandal without me?" she grunted through the blocked door as she heard the familiar start up tune while she was trying to use her remaining strength to move the hefty, fully stocked set of shelves. Once she's successful she barges in with a deep scowl.
"The sky was falling..." you shut your laptop guiltily, then slowly made your away around your desk to pull the dirtied woman into you.
"Yeah, it certainly was," she melted into you, honestly she was too tired to further scold you over something so mundane, especially after she already spent the entire day bickering with egotistical men, then as if it was a cherry atop of a shit sundae, she had to fight ugly aliens.
"Sit down love, I'm gonna clean you up."
"Detka," you hummed while maneuvering around the shop to collect your hair products and first aid kit. "Would you like to meet the team today? We're going to get Shawarma."
"Who's really left to meet?" you teased, and she lowered her voice to imitate the men, "Bruce, the Hulk, and Thor, the God of Thunder."
"I'd love to go with you Nat, thank you," you lightly kissed her split lips. "Just maybe after I rinse your hair and disinfect these cuts."
"Fair enough."
Natasha was fatigued beyond recognition, so you had her hop onto your back, she protested softly, but the second her feet left the ground you felt her sigh against your back. "Comfy?"
The redhead nodded, then to further prove your suspicions she yawned, "It's just up the street detka, they're probably already eating."
Natasha rested as best she could on your trek to the family owned restaurant that managed to remain unscathed unlike the neighboring stores surrounding it that laid in ruins. Once you got to the door though she dropped from your back, then like the gentlewoman she was she opened the door for you, and escorted you to the table where she took her rightful seat.
There wasn't another open for you since they weren't expecting a plus one, but that didn't matter much, because to make the message clear to the unknowing men gawking at the both of you, Nat pulled you into her lap and kissed you oh so tenderly. Steve blushed at the unfamiliar sight, Tony smirked, and Clint was expectedly unbothered as he stuffed his face.
Thor too seemed unbothered as he asked for someone to pass him the 'sauce that burns his tongue in ways he enjoys.' Bruce, the reserved one looked a bit taken aback, and almost hurt if you cared to look at him, but he shook off his unfair jealousy, then politely shook your hand.
"Lovely to see you again Zoe."
"Zoe?" Steve looked between the three of you, and you and your lover knowingly chuckled. "Tony, and everyone else I guess, this is Y/N, my girlfriend of a years time, and that's all I will be disclosing, so avert your eyes and eat."
Tony didn't care about her disinterest, he was too busy having an epiphany, and so he gasped obnoxiously loudly, "You two got together because of me? Wow! You're both welcome."
"Your little team of superheroes seemed," you paused to mull it over while ripping the sheet back, slipping under the cool fabric, and opening your arms wide for the cuddle fiend that was your girlfriend to crawl right on into.
"Insufferable? Pig headed? Inept besides Clint, and even then I might be being too nice?"
Natasha smiled against your neck as you tried to temper your exhausted cackle. "I was going to say potentially incorrigible, but for the sake of mankind's survival I hope they're not."
"Yeah, me too, because as of right now it's an overload on testosterone, and I think if history has taught us anything, it's that that's usually the greatest indicator for eventual disaster"
You snorted at your lovers tired grumbling, "Yeah, but with you there to lead, it'll be fine."
"I sure hope so," she yawned, "Goodnight Y/N, I love you." Your body tensed, but when you looked into her murky eyes you could see that the exhaustion brought it on, but it was the truth nonetheless. "I love you too Natasha."
A smile wider than the state of Texas spread against your skin, followed by a smattering of tired, soft kisses as she nuzzled further into you., "YA sobirayus' khranit' tebya vechno."
(I'm going to keep you forever.)
"What was that?"
"You're a dead woman walking for watching Scandal without me, you better sleep with one eye open," she nipped your skin teasingly and you slapped her butt warningly. "Mhm, sure..."
As you both slipped away into a state of bliss Natasha couldn't fathom how she got so lucky to have found you, and you pondered learning Russian, because you loved her enough to.
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2014
"Natasha, sit still," you commanded, the ability to straighten her hair as she asked of you was almost nonexistent with the way she moved.
"I'm sorry detka, I-I," she paused, her thoughts were jumbled with all the anxiety she's been feeling since her mission with Steve yesterday.
"What is it?" you settled the straightener down, then spun her around to face you, and in the cutest way possible she reached for you then pulled you into her lap so she could bury her face in your chest. "My favorite stress balls."
"Natasha," you warned, but the bite in your tone was nonexistent, and you found yourself laughing lightly along with her. "What? The world is an absolute garbage fire, but when I'm here, with my face in your breasts it's alright."
"I can't stand you," you groaned, and she shifted to look at you with a quirked brow., "Good thing you're sitting down then, huh?"
"Natasha, I swear to God!" her face smushed back into your breasts, but this time she was blowing raspberries, and you were aghast, “You’re a fucking pervert,” she laughed wildly as the words left you in a near shriek.
“I’m a pervert for only you,“ she pecked your lips, a sigh of relief brushing across your face as she feels her anxieties melting away so easily when she’s touching you—you’re her peace.
The sound of her pager going off like crazy ruined the whole vibe, “What now? Was me commandeering an entire ship not enough?”
Natasha’s face fell though as she read the tiny script: ‘Fury’s been compromised—hurry.’
The drive to the hospital was fast, you held on to the handle tightly as she swerved between lanes. Even in her frenzied state she settled a hand over your thigh to offer comfort, and in the moment when she had nothing but time to think she curses herself for letting you come.
If someone is after Fury, and they see her in the hospital she’s going to be a follow up target, and by bringing you she’s made you one too.
With your hand in hers you both entered the hospital, Maria and Steve were there to greet you both, and as they brought you to a window you saw the elder man in a state of disarray. Then before any words could be muttered his heart monitor went haywire, then he flatlined.
Natasha cried into your shoulder for all of two seconds before she was pulling it together. Her jaw clenched at the thought of leaving you, but she had no choice, so she kissed the corner of your lips, “I have to go,” Natasha held her hand up when you tried to follow her, “I’m okay,” she tossed Maria the keys, then soon disappeared.
You went to chase your girlfriend down but Maria stopped you, “Come with me, Nat’s not going to stop until she has answers, and you’re not safe if you go home since you came here.”
“Oh,” you nodded, then followed her instead.
Natasha entered the facility you were being held at with a deep scowl on her face, it didn’t exactly melt away at the sight of you, but it definitely lessened when you embraced her. Maria’s hold on her was nonexistent now as you took over escorting her to a chair for the doctor. Her subtle wince caused you to let go, and you made quick work of her jacket so you could see what happened, and you gasped.
The doctors rushed you aside, then fixed her up remarkably fast, and once they moved you tried to lean in for a kiss, but Natasha evaded your affection with ease, it was so subtle the way she leaned her forehead to yours, but you still felt the sting of her rejecting affection. It terrified you to think that after everything you have overcome together that she’d retreat now.
“I’m okay detka, I’ve experienced worse,” she tried to play down the wound, her voice wasn’t much above a whisper as she tried to keep the moment specifically between the two of you, but she didn’t succeed because you were on your feet, and slamming a fist into Steve.
“How could you let this happen to her?” You glared at the man, but you could see the guilt on his face ran deeper than her being wounded, “Why do you look so guilty Steve? What is it?”
Natasha glared at the super soldier, she told him that what happened on the escalator was self preservation, and that she’d tell you, but he was about to blurt it out, and humiliate you.
“Natasha kissed me,” he squeaked, blue eyes widening as he saw the murderous redhead jump to her feet, “I-It was only—,” you shook your head, a sign that the man took as your disinterest in his blubbering explanations.
Instead you turned to look at Natasha, who was quick to soften her gaze as your eyes locked, a tense silence befell the room because no one knew what was about to happen. Natasha did though, she knew you were silently assessing, and when you smiled softly at her she relaxed.
“I’m sorry you had to do that my beloved,” you coo, then entered into her good arms embrace, “It must’ve been a hardship for you to kiss a man seeing as how you’re not into them.”
Maria smirked, but then upon seeing Fury’s expression she cleared her throat, and began to debrief the room about Hydra’s infiltration. You sat in Nat’s lap while they discussed the miracle of Fury’s survival, and you hardly paid attention, your eyes transfixed on Nat instead.
Which is why when Fury muttered, “Can't kill you if you're already dead. Besides, I wasn't sure who to trust.” You watched as Natasha’s eyes glazed over, and that had you seeing red.
“She took a bullet trying to avenge you, and you don’t know who you can trust?” You made your way over to the man, and slapped him across the face, and Nat tried to pull you away, “Detka, calm down.” But it was of no use.
“No? Absolutely not,” you brushed her off, then turned to point a finger at everyone present, “You all disgust me with how you treat her. Like Natasha is just an expendable asset, but she isn’t, she has a family to come home to and I’d appreciate it if she came back to us alive.”
The room was silent besides everyone’s varying breaths, yours being the loudest as you were feeling rather irate by the audacity in the room. Natasha took tentative steps, her hand turning you by your shoulder so she could look at you.
“I promise I’ll return to you tonight, and I’ll have Maria here take you back home so you’re comfy. She’ll stay with you until I get there,” you pouted, and she desperately wanted to kiss it away, but she simply refused to until her mouth was cleaned of Steve’s existence.
“What do you want for dinner?” Natasha laughed at your sweet question, “You pick.”
You nodded, then placed a kiss to her cheek before shifting to face the others, “Keep her safe, or I swear to God you will all regret it.”
Natasha entered your house in a stagger, her heart was nervous for a whole great deal of things, most importantly being you leaving.
“Welcome home Romanoff, I’ll be going.”
“Thanks Maria,” she squeezed the redhead’s shoulder, then yelled her goodbye to you.
This prompted you to race into the living room to see Natasha stood there in one piece, but her eyes spoke of a separate form of shattering. When she fell to her knees a second later you were right by her with no regard to your knees.
“Natasha, what is it?”
“Please don’t leave me,” she sobbed, “I can’t do this without you, I won’t survive—I won’t!”
“Hey, hey,” you settled on your butt then yanked her trembling form into you, “I’m not going anywhere, where is this coming from?”
“I had to air out all of Shield’s dirty laundry,” she started, her hand shaking as you clasped yours over it and you sent her a reassuring smile, “That included all the darkest parts about my past, once you see it you’ll leave.”
“Natasha, your past doesn’t define you, no one is free of skeletons in their closet, and yours were never yours to bare the reprimand for,” you cupped her cheek, and brought her gaze back to yours, “I know your heart Natasha, and whatever those files say doesn’t change that.”
“Matter of fact, they don’t matter, and I won’t even be reading them,” you announced, and her tears finally spilled over, “Thank you…”
“Don’t thank me Nat, you deserve to tell me whatever you want, when you’re ready, not when the world forces you to.”
“I love you Y/N,” she jolted up and caught your lips in a kiss, her mouth tasted of mint, and you smiled at the thought of her probably having brushed her teeth in some drug store just so she could kiss you when she got home.
“I love you too Natasha, you’re stuck with me.”
She smiled against your lips, “Really?” and when you nodded she smiled even wider.
“Marry me then,” she blurted the hopeful words against your lips, then she pulled back with pinched brows as she awaited an answer.
“Seriously?” she nodded, and watched how your eyes now filed with tears, “Of course.”
Natasha kissed you even harder this time, a symbolic sealing of the deal she reasoned.
“Is that borscht I smell?” you nodded with a breathless sigh to follow, and she smiled in pure adoration, “Might as well marry you now, my pretty little housewife in the making.”
“Do it,” you challenged, and she met that with a bruising kiss to which she instantly deepened, her silent promise that she’d be keeping you here until the ready borscht likely went cold.
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2016
Natasha woke up next to you this morning, and for a few moments everything just felt right. Then she was called into work only to be met with a scraggly old man in a suit, who laid out a packet thicker than her arms all in the name of containing the Avengers. Tony's argument felt right, it seemed the only option that kept the team safe, but more importantly all together.
Steve didn't agree though, and in a few short hours he became a wanted man, alongside his old pal Bucky, his new pal Sam, her best friend Clint, a shrinking man she'd never met named Scott, and the rightfully terrified witch, Wanda.
Nothing felt right anymore, and as the lot of them fought against one another she knew it wasn't going to end well. Her plans to marry you this Fall would have to wait as she attacked TChalla, and allowed Steve and Bucky to flee.
In less than an hour she was back at the compound collecting her arsenal of weapons, and ignoring Tony's venomous words only spat to hurt her as she rushed off to be on the run.
This life wasn't new to her, being on the run was second nature for the reformed assassin, but now, at this stage of her life it was cruel. There was no easy way to tell you, the love of her life, that she had to leave, but as she raced up the stairs to your shared bedroom she found you sat on the edge of the bed in a fit of tears.
You knew...
"Malysh." you lunged into her open arms, sending the both of you tumbling into the carpeted floor where she held you very tightly. "It'll be okay, I promise, I'll find my way back."
"Back?," you croaked, head shaking rapidly as you refused to accept this., "I'm coming with."
"Not this time Agent.," you sobbed even harder as she cupped the back of your head while sitting you both back up so she could look into your eyes, even if the sight broke her in two., "Liho, and Tabby need you moya lyubov'."
"I need you," your voice cracked, and the tears she managed to keep at bay began to stain her cheeks at the dire situation at hand., "I know detka, I need you just as much as I do oxygen."
"Please, let me come with," you pleaded, hands clinging to her jacket in desperation, and you pulled her in for an equally as desperate kiss.
"This is going to test us," she panted after she managed to pull away from the liplock, her usual sparkling green eyes were dull as she looked into yours now. "But please, don't tell me that if I leave that you won't be here when I get back, because I promise you I'll be back."
"Be careful," you relent, and lean in to kiss her far more gently now, her hands that were sat on your hips gripped you tighter, she needed to feel you, because there was no telling when she would have an opportunity to do so again.
"I always am," she whispered, a soft smile pulling her at lips as she looked into your eyes. "My love for you is all the inspiration I need to make it back to you in one piece," she pecked your lips, then lifted both of you to stand.
"I love you Natasha Romanoff," she brought your entwined hands up to her lips where she pecked each knuckle until she reached your pitifully bare ring finger, where her soft lips lingered., "And I you, Y/N Romanoff."
The sound of sirens in the distance put a rush on your goodbye. "Until we meet again," you smiled sadly as she hopped onto her bike with two ill prepared duffles. "Until then my love."
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2018
"Natasha, where are you going?" she peered over to Steve with a sad smile. "I'll be back, I just need to see someone first," and before anyone could protest she was leaving the room.
She was still on the run, so she had to be cautious about how she went about her route. Ross wouldn't have trouble getting her if she walked right into your establishment, and she would never put you in such a position. So she texted you from a burner phone instead, and that's how you found yourself in a quaint diner.
"Natasha, please tell me you didn't," your eyes nearly popped out of their sockets as the now blonde approached you with a mischievous grin. "What, you don't like the new hair?"
"I-I," you were thrown, because of course you did, she could pull anything off, but you also knew her resources were limited, so this was likely a very cheap dye job and it made you sad for all the progress you made keeping her hair healthy over the years. "You're beautiful Nat."
"It'll grow back out my love, and then I'll leave it for only you to handle, I promise."
"So I can go with you on the run this time?"
Natasha shook her head, and pulled you in for a hug that nearly crippled her after so long without your body flush to hers. "I'd never let you do that, you're undeserving of such a life."
"All I want is you Natasha, I don't care." she smiled sadly, "I know, but it doesn't matter, because there's no more being on the run."
"Really?" she nodded with a bright smile. "After we win, I'll be back for good malysh."
"Good, I can't stand another two years Nat."
"You won't have to," she smiled as you leaned into her, and she unexpectedly sobbed as you pressed your lips to hers, "I missed you Y/N."
"I missed you too Natty.," you reached up to wipe away her tears, then pecked her lips once more knowing she had to go, "I'll be waiting."
They lost, half of everyone turned to dust, and you weren't answering your fucking phone.
You always answered your phone.
No matter what.
Natasha felt waves of pure panic, the contents of her stomach were emptied on the jet, and even though her limbs ached she ran to you.
She had to get to you, there was nothing else she needed more right now than your love.
The doors of your shop flew open, causing her to cough as clouds of dust swirled at the action.
"No...," She fell to her knees besides the chair, your phone laid shattered on the floor in a pile of dust and various hair clippings with an unsent message: "I don't feel good Natasha."
Natasha didn't feel good either, and she would never again if she had to live without you..
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2023
“Hey Nat,” Steve greeted as he stepped into the meeting room to find her quietly sulking over a halved peanut butter sandwich. “You okay?”
“Your friend is fine,” she answered almost too quickly for the words to be true, and the older man sighed with the truth weighing on his mind. “Don’t you think it’s time to move on?”
“If I move on, who does this?”
“Maybe nobody, threats have been almost nonexistent Natasha, the oceans are more clear, the grass is real, and the sky is bluer.”
“If you think there’s a bright side to half of the population being dusted you’re honestly not the righteous man I thought you to be Steve.”
“I’ve become a realist in my old age Nat, you deserve to be happy, Y/N wouldn’t want this.”
“Don’t you ever bring her up to push your agenda Rogers,” she growls through gritted teeth, and the man yields upon seeing her eyes of fury paired with a clenched jaw and fists.
“There’s no moving on without her Steve. I’ll search until I’m old and grey for a way to get her back because she’s worth fighting for.”
Steve sighs, “I understand, I was just trying to help is all, I hate seeing you so down.”
“You can’t help me Steve, it seems no one can.”
Natasha slumped back in her chair, and just as her eyes went to close she got a notification from Friday that someone was at the gate.
“Hello?”
Natasha immediately turned to see that the man she knows as ‘Antman’ was stood outside, which made her jolt up because he was presumed dusted, and upon letting him in she realizes that she was l wrong, someone can help her, she just has to l pay the arrogant billionaire a visit and hope he’s down to help.
Tony was reluctant to help, but at the thought of Peter, his prodigy, he was in, and Natasha was elated at the promise of undoing the mess. Having you back in her arms was all she needs, and after a few days it’s looking promising.
Clint returned with a baseball glove, showing the mission would succeed as long as all parties did their part. For the most part that was true, but someone had to pay the ultimate price, and then some cosmic fluke, one that Tony himself predicted, occurred as a past Thanos emerged.
It was a gruesome battle, it seemed like the loss of Steve on Vormir was all for not, but then the fruits of their labors came to light as loads of portals opened and all those dusted emerged.
“Avengers Assemble!” Natasha aired out the war cry, a new wave of adrenaline fueling her aching body as she charged at the enemies with the knowledge that you were back to fight for.
Natasha sprinted from the battle field as soon as Thanos's army became nothing but dust, her legs were nearly out of commission, weighing as heavy as her heart did with the losses of the unforeseen battle, but she refused to stop until she had you, this time she knew she would.
All her friends were back, so you would be too.
Five years she'd been deprived of you, and she refused to go another minute, she promised you it wouldn't be two like before, but she never realized in doing so she sealed herself to a far more daunting, and lengthier fate.
Much like before the doors to your shop fly open, but this time you're there to look up at the sound of the familiar ding, and you don't have time to ask questions before the love of your life is sobbing loudly against your chest.
"You're here," you hear the pain in her words, to you it had only been an hour since you last felt her touch, but the sight of her changed look told you that it had to have been longer for her.
"I'm here," she gripped your shirt as you went to move, her inability to let you go actually broke your heart in two. "I'm not going anywhere love, just going to sit us down."
Natasha let you go rather briefly, allowing you to settle into the reclining lounge chair in your office, and she straddled you just as soon as your butt made contact with the plush fabric.
"You weren't waiting," she sobbed, fists now clutching your shirts collar while her hazy eyes met your soft pair. "We lost, so you were gone."
The words were enough for you to understand something magically mysterious took place, and that was good because the redhead wasn't able to elaborate, her body racking with more sobs as she reflects on her forced solitude.
With a gentle hand on the back of her head you guided her face into the crook of you neck, you felt as she took in a sharp, deep breath, and how her lip subsequently quivered right after. Her arms then forced their way between your back and the soft material of the recliner so that she could hold you impossibly closer, in direct response you copied her embracement.
After a half hour her sobs faded into hiccups, but your hand rubbing random shapes over her suit continued, even if she could barely feel it. The motion still brought her comfort, and that's all you could try to do here, there was no relating to her pain, you understood the forced solitude, but you can tell hers was far crueler.
"How long?" You started simple, but she still struggled to answer you, it hurt too much to verbalize her former reality. "F-five years."
"Oh my love," you brought her face out to look in her eyes, hands cupping her cheeks so softly as if she were made of glass. The red rimming of her eyes, and tinting of her nose broke your heart, knowing that she was likely in a state of perpetual disarray while you were gone hurt. "I'm so sorry I wasn't waiting," you kissed away the new tears as they fell. "I'm here now baby."
"I need to feel you, please, show me it's real," she pleaded, her hands already tugging at the hem of your shirt, so you sat forward to help her remove it, then you moved a hand to the front zipper of her suit, "Take it off, please!"
It'd been seven years since Natasha felt you like this, with your skin on hers it felt like a dream, like one she frequently had while on the run, but couldn’t bring herself to with you gone.
Natasha whimpered when she felt you shifting so you could set her on the chair, but she was quick to settle when she realized you were going to undress completely for her, her eyes were trained on you without ever wavering. When you slid your pants off, along with your underwear she was gasping in pure shock.
“Fuck, detka,” you smirked in amusement when catching her eyes curiously staring at the strap, “I told you baby, I’d be waiting for you.”
It clicked, and as it did she was pleading with you to give her all of you with lust burning behind her eyes, pupils darkened to the point that they seemed like a black hole ready to consume you whole, and that had you on her in no time at all, soft lips exploring her bareness.
"My sweet Natasha, you've been through so much," you acknowledge, lips pressing to scars you'd never seen before, and your heart ached. "I'm sorry you were alone for so long, but I'm here, and I'm going to take good care of you."
Natasha's entire body shivered as you ran the hard silicone through her folds, collecting her arousal so that you could enter her with ease.
“I know you want my cock baby, but please, can I taste you first?” she nodded vigorously, her hands quick to push you lower, and you snorted, “Thank you angel,” you took a deep breath in, feeling yourself salivating as you smelled her arousal, “Oh fuck, you smell heavenly, you’re still my sweet girl, right?”
“Mhm,” Natasha hummed softly, need too heavily clouding her mind to answer properly. Then she was too busy moaning as your tongue expertly swirled around her clit before it was prodding at her entrance in a teasing manner.
Mewls of pornographic proportions tumbled passed her lips as you worked her up to the edge, she hadn’t been turned on in actual years, so this was not going to be a long fuck.
You were just too good with that tongue of yours for her to hold back much of anything; her hips were frantic as they fucked her cunt into your mouth to help her get off faster; her walls fluttering around your thick pink muscle, leaving it without much wiggle room but you sure made it move; and those screams of hers were uncontainable as you sent her crashing head first into the most intense orgasm ever.
“Fuck, oh my god, please don’t ever stop!”
“I never plan to,” you murmured against her bundle of nerves causing her body to writhe as the pleasure only further coursed through her.
Natasha was panting like she’d just run a marathon, and quite honestly she’d done just about that to get to you from the intense battle. Regardless of her inability to breathe though she yanked you up and into her for a kiss that was nothing short of messy, and thrilling.
While your tongue explored her pliant mouth you reached down to line yourself up with her needy entrance, “Going to fuck you so good,” you pulled away from her lips to catch sight of her face as you thrusted completely into her.
Natasha didn’t disappoint you either, her eyes rolled to the back of her head as she was so overwhelmed by your intrusion that she was choking on the air she’s gasped in, her mouth was agape but she was too dumbed to breathe.
“Breath for me baby,” you pulled out, just to shallowly thrust back in, teasing her back down to earth, “Please, I-I need you inside so bad.”
“I know you do baby,” you smiled down at her, then watched as she involuntarily bit back a moan when you refilled her to the brim, “None of that now, I want to hear how good you feel.”
With your arms now hooked underneath her thighs as your hands reached up to fondle her breasts your thrusts were hitting even deeper. Natasha was cursing lowly in Russian, a sure way to let you know she was going to cum any second now, and you knew just what to do.
Natasha loved the idea of being yours, and she loved it even more when it came with marks.
It was an earth shattering occurrence really, you kept your pace pleasurably slow, as you began to nibble over the skin of her jaw, one of your hands continued tweaking her nipples in dizzying oscillations, as the other ventured down to rub tentative circles against her enlarged clit, “You’re close, aren’t you baby?”
Natasha whimpered with her head thrown back into the pillow, her ability to answer was lost on her as your mouth suctioned against the sensitive expanse of her throat, leaving behind marks she would never dream of covering up.
“Let go baby, drench my cock,” you bit into her pulse point, and Natasha couldn’t refrain from screaming your name in a sequence of praises.
Everything about you made her lose every ounce of composure she’s ever been trained to keep. Your smiles melt her stoney heart, and yours giggles basically annihilated her chance at ever wanting to be an Avenger ever again.
All she wants now is to retire with you, and start a family, because you’re her endgame. Nothing else will ever matter more than you.
While buried deep inside her, here you hover over her with a warm smile, you just recked her but still you manage to lean down to whisper sweet nothings in her ear as she comes down.
“How are you feeling my love?”
Natasha smiled up at you with glistening eyes, “Like I can finally breathe again, I missed you tremendously detka,” her lip wobbled slightly as you whispered against her, “Let’s go home.”
Natasha happily took you home on her bike as soon as she calmed down from her high, the trek was short, but meaningful as she felt you clinging to her the entire way home, the tight embrace was healing her tattered soul with every second she was able to experience it.
The two of you shared a sweet kiss as soon as you got off the bike, your lover was reluctant to let up, but she had no choice as you swept her off her feet. Natasha squealed with laughter as she settled into your arms, she admired you fondly, heart fluttering with hope as you carry her over the threshold as if you’d finally wed.
“Welcome home my beloved,” you kissed her lovingly, then let her legs drop softly, while swiftly wrapping your arms around her waist.
“I should be saying that to you,” she whispers, and you can hear the sadness in her tone, so you just pull her even closer, and kiss her deeper. “We both deserved to say it Natty.”
“I love the hair Natty,” you twirled the end of her braid in your hand, admiring the growth and dual tone, while your other ran up and down her back in soothing strokes. “Yeah?”
“Mhm,” you continued to play with her hair, slowly but surely you unraveled the braid, and admired the way her hair fell around her face, framing it beautifully and making you smile.
“You’re very beautiful,” you smiled wider as she blushed deeply, even in the darkness of your house you could see the red tinge of her cheeks, and how it steadily rose from her neck.
More than a decade of loving one another, and she still felt nervous whenever you spoke so tenderly to her. Treating her like a dainty flower instead of the venomous spider that hides in the petals, the one she herself feels a kinship with. You saw her for more than the world ever would. To you, she was just Natty.
“I was thinking of cutting it, but I made a promise to my favorite person, so I didn’t.”
“Oh Natty, my precious angel,” you pulled her face to yours, nuzzling your noses before you closed the minuscule gap, “You waited for me?”
The truth was right there for you to see, her eyes having returned to their natural green shone through with so much love, it was the purist kind, and you knew she meant it wholly. Nobody else would ever interest the redhead again, not when she has you as the blueprint.
“Of course I did, I’d have waited a lifetime.”
You smirked, “Yeah? I can just picture it now, grey roots, with a rich red that ombre’s to the blonde tips,” she slapped your arm, then played with you, “I’ll never go grey detka.”
“Maybe not with me here to dye your hair,” you teased while escorting your fiancée up to your bedroom so the both of you could shower.
Loud meows reverberated off the walls, and your heart cracked when you saw your not so little babies stretching on the mattress, “Oh my have you two grown,” you dropped to your knees and nuzzled your face with theirs.
Natasha stood in the bathroom doorway with a sad smile, she’d started the water already, and now she’s taken to watching you reacquainting with your felines. “They missed you just as much as I did detka, they meowed at the front door for a whole year before they gave up.”
“You never gave up,” you whispered, overcome with so many emotions as you stroke over a new to you patch of grey fur on Liho’s back.
“I never would’ve detka, you’re my world.”
“Time is so precious,” you choked out before rising to your feet, and meeting Natasha with a wobbling lip and tight embrace, “I don’t want to wait anymore Nat, I want to be your wife, move to Norway and start the rest of our lives.”
“Can Norway become Ohio?”
You quirked a brow, but nodded without any hesitation, “Wherever with you works for me.”
Natasha beamed at your words, “Perfect, we’ll leave tomorrow then, I have a house in our name, and someone special I want you to meet, and after you meet Yelena we’ll get married at the local courthouse with her as our witness.”
“Yelena?!”
“Yeah, I found her when I was on the run,” she smiled while pulling you under the hot stream, “But enough about all that, how about you give me a sneak preview of our wedding night?”
Natasha moaned when you pushed her against the marbled wall, “You’re going to regret that.”
——
13,049 Words
❤️ Kaitlyn 🥰
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writing-house-of-m · 9 months
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just like You.
Natasha Romanoff x Reader
Genre: Fluff
Warnings: Endgame canon
Word count: 431
Summary: You tell Natasha about your daughter
A/N: I don't really know how I feel about this, either way I hope you like it. Please let me know what you think
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She reminds me of you every day
When the morning light bounces off her red hair
How she breaks eye contact as she laughs
The lines between her brows when she is concentrating
I wish you got to see the young woman that she is turning into
I tell her about you to make sure she never forgets
You look down
Moving around some dry twigs with your foot then back at the marble stone
I tell her about how I see you
In the final hours of the day when the sunlight seeps through the trees
Soft breezes through the long grass in the field out back during our late afternoon walks
The old family photos Yelena gave us on one of her visits
She wants to dye her hair blue now
Tears well in your eyes
You clear your throat to get rid of the lump forming
I still hate the sacrifice you had to make to bring us back
Five years
Alone
I can't imagine how you must have felt without us
I know I wouldn't have survived
But you did
You were always the stronger one out of the two of us
Then you paid the ultimate price
For us
For all of us
I will always love you
We will always love you
You spin the ring you still wear on your finger
It is the only thing you have left of her from something that feels like it was a lifetime ago
Sometimes I don't know what to do with it all - This love that was meant for you
It overwhelms me when I read the letters you left for us
The letters that serve as an extra reminder you were real
That your love for us was real
The biggest reminder of our love is our daughter
You visit this empty grave at least once a week
'Daughter, Sister, Avenger'
The only word missing is 'Mother'
No one knew of your daughter
It is safer this way
God, she reminds me of you everyday
You scoff at the recent memories you have of her as well as the ones with your wife
A tear escapes your eye but you wipe it away just as quick as it falls
You recount the images playing in your head with a smile on your face
Midnight cravings for peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
Her sense of humor
The green in her eyes that shine when they fill with mischief
And that stupid smirk
Your stupid smirk
You would have loved her, Natasha
She is just like You.
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anubvs · 2 years
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[HC#001.5] being natasha & pepper's daughter: pt.2
read part 1 here.
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that's when you saw her
you stood there frozen, every speech you had practiced, every time you had imagined her coming home and you running into her arms, all just left your mind.
Mama Nat was home, she stood next to Steve and Wanda. she just looked at you.
she looked different, but in all fairness, so did you. you had built more muscle, thanks to a year and a half of ballet. you were taller too, and you had a blue streak in your hair.
Nat just looked at you and smiled, "there's my girl."
that was it for you, it all came back. all the times you had comforted your mom, Pepper, during the sad nights. the trash bags you tossed filled with flowers and unmarked cards, even the ones you had intercepted so that your mom didn't have to go through the pain, although you knew that she had gotten them anyways.
so you ran, to the one place that have been safe for you the past few years. the lab.
you stayed in the lab, tinkering, for what seemed like hours. the only thing that calmed you. putting together new pieces of equipment and modifying old ones. specifically your mother's.
after a while you heard the doors to the lab opened. only a few people could have access when you put it in lockdown, your Uncle Tony made sure it was a parental measure. it was both Pepper and Nat. you guess your Mom came immediately when she had heard Nat was back.
"I don't wanna talk right now." you didn't even have to look up, they just sat on either side of you.
Pepper decided she would be the only one to get through to you right now. "Then you can just listen. We don't expect you to forgive or forget, hell, I don't think any of us can. Y/n, there are just some things that are beyond what we want or what we can control, but what have we always taught you? You should always the right thing, whether anyone else agrees with you or not, if it can help people, you do it."
you didn't respond. you knew she was right, but that didn't mean you had to like it. so you just looked at Nat, waiting for her to speak
"I never wanted to leave you or your mother. I wanted to home. I can't change how you feel, or understand what you went through while I was gone. I can't make up for being gone...." "Or missing your performances. I can't make this all go back to normal, but I know that no matter what, I will always try my hardest to come home to you both."
she wiped the tears that had begun to fall down your face. "Right now the world needs everyone's help, and from what I hear, a certain someone had been making things to be able to help. What do you say?"
and so you did. you didn't hug her or say anything, you just looked up and smiled and followed them back to the common room with the others
hearing Wanda's "hey little bug" was enough to get you moving. "What do I need to do."
6 Months Later...
you won, not just the battle, but in life. your mama had stayed true to her promise, she had come home. Nat had been put on an "only if the world is ending" list.
it was nice having her home, in your little town home in upstate NY. Wanda lived with you all too, becoming an honorary sister to you.
and now there they all sat in the stands, something you had lost hope for in the past 2 years, as you walked the stage to get your diploma.
you still had some trust issues, nightmares that came back every now and then but both of your mom's were there, each and ever time.
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ta-da! the final part.
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delfiore · 11 months
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—DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT (3/3)
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pairing: natasha romanoff x android!reader
synopsis: natasha finds a way to to lure you out; and, a confrontation.
warnings: canon violence
word count: 3.8k
a/n: last part wooo!!! i’m so glad this idea is fully written out now after sitting in the dungeon for like 2 years.
PART I, PART II
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Natasha had known pain like any other feeling.
The Red Room ensured her a lifetime's worth of it. But rarely, though, has she ever felt the pain of betrayal. Perhaps the Sokovia Accords had given her a taste, but it was nothing compared to when she looked you in the eyes, knowing that you had just tried to kill her.
"I'm sorry for everything," you had said. So easy to just say sorry as if that would solve everything.
Was everything you and her had together all a lie? A part of the scheme created by whoever was sick enough to be behind all of it? You had been the perfect little spy, Natasha should have known.
She let her emotions compromise the Avengers.
"Well?" She turned around when she saw Steve walk into the common lounge. He was still in his suit, meaning he must have just returned from patrol.
"Still no sign of Y/N or VULCAN's location," he replied. "Tony's saying we attempt to catch another android. Only this time, we make sure we get whatever information we need out of it."
"That won't work", Nat shook her head. "Those things are airtight. Their programs won't allow it."
The Captain pursed his lips, watching his teammate and friend stare at the monitor displaying your information. "Nat." He spoke quietly.
She stayed silent. If only I had been more vigilante, she wanted to say.
"There was no way you could have known." Steve sighed, setting his shield down by the table. "She managed to fool everyone."
Natasha chewed at her lower lip, looking to the ceiling to stop the wetness from spilling out of her eyes.
"I let her fool me," she exhaled. "I won't let it slide."
"What's your play?" Steve asked.
"I racked my brain, trying to understand why. Why infiltrate us? Why get close to me?" Natasha turned to him. "And then I got it. They want to create an army, but not just any army; an army of androids. Think Ultron's army, but each of them possesses the same intelligence and mental capacity that humans do. That's what Y/N is, a perfect soldier."
"So how do we stop 'em? Can't be as easy as punching our way in like we did with Ultron," Tony appeared from the doorway with a mug in his hand. "I mean we don't even know where they are."
"There’s something that I haven’t told you, about my past,” Nat pursed her lips before she continued. “In the Red Room, they used a formula to control our minds. The other day, I checked my laptop for a file disguised as the real formula. Sure enough, it had been copied, no doubt by Y/N when I wasn’t looking.”
“So she doesn’t have the real formula?” Steve asked.
“Which means we still have some leverage.” Tony said grimly. “We need to hurry before we lose that too.”
Natasha inhaled warily and nodded. She wasn’t used to being on the losing side, and she would you just what it felt like to be backed in a corner.
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It was easy for you to adjust to your new position at VULCAN. With the data from the Red Room retrieved and in Caesar's possession, you became his favorite among his human and android soldiers. Instead of your regular civilian clothes, you were now dressed in dark and tight clothing fit for a spy. A real spy, that's what you were now.
As you approached his office, the guards by the door saluted and granted you entrance without a word. Caesar was looking out the window wall behind his desk, his back facing you.
"16."
"Sir." You lifted your chin. "Batch PF200 has just finished being assembled. They should be ready to be deployed in a few days."
"Good," Caesar said, unmoving. You took that as a sign to be dismissed, but as you turned to leave, he spoke up. "Wait."
You straightened up again. "Do you remember why I created VULCAN?"
"To create a better world, sir." You answered without hesitation. "To arm the world with intelligence void of human errors."
"Correct, and yet," he turned to face you, his eyes hard and dark. "All you've done ever since you were activated is FAIL!"
His sudden outburst made you jump out of your skin. Your breathing quickens as you watch him pull out a USB from his pocket, and toss it on the table. It was the one you handed him.
"It's a fake." He gritted his teeth.
"B-But, I thought—" You sank to your knees with a scream as a volt of electricity coursing through your body in an instant. Looking up, you saw Caesar with a remote in his hand, his knuckle turning white at how hard he was pressing it.
"Where is the real file?!" He shouted over you.
"I-I don't know, I thought that was the real file! I took it off of Natasha Romanoff's personal computer." You blurted out quickly.
"I ordered you to kill the Black Widow, and you fail, but this?! This was the whole reason I brought you online!" You flinched at his tone, as you doubled over on the floor. Caesar had never treated you like this before. It made you fear whatever punishment came next.
"I'm sorry, sir," you uttered meekly, your legs still spasming preventing you from getting back up.
He sighed, his shoulders sagging as he shook his head. "It seems there might still be some . . . shortcomings in your program. That would be my fault, I failed. You're a failure, 16."
You swallowed and pushed yourself up, your legs still wobbling but you stood, though your eyes were stained with tears. "I'm sorry, sir. It won't happen again." You wanted to sound firm, to make Caesar believe that he could trust you again. Without Caesar's trust, what did you have left?
"No, it won't." He said bitterly and leaned into you. "You are a weapon, 16, and you will be of use in that front. You will kill, and you will be good at it. As for your well-roundedness, well . . ."
Caesar walked over to the adjacent wall, and pressed a button next to it. The wall unblurred and revealed a lab below where engineers were working tirelessly on another android model. Its left arm and leg weren't yet connected to the rest of the body, parts of them laying at the side. The torso was bare, still revealing the metal underneath the skin that would be put on. But its face was what caught your attention; it was as if you were staring at another version of yourself, a disembodied jumble that was still blissfully asleep.
"I've been working to improve you, 16," Caesar said, looking down proudly at his creation. "The Winter Soldier program shocked and froze its Soldiers to keep them in line, but they’d never truly have control over them. I have the resources to start anew each time the current one becomes faulty.
This is model FD700-17, your successor. It will be faster, stronger, more intelligent, and most important of all, absolutely void of human errors. Perfection."
Your eyes burned, your extremities ached from the current, your heart broken in half. Why did you ever think that you weren’t expendable? You were a machine, and there was always going to be something else coming along to replace you. Maybe being with Natasha made you feel special, like you could live a life. None of that mattered anymore.
“I have a lead on the real formula, sent by the Black Widow herself.” Caesar came up behind you. “Tick tock, 16, or your next stop will be the scrap metal yard.”
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The address Natasha sent lead you to an abandoned warehouse by the piers. It was clever, no one ever has business here, and those that do usually wishes to keep their presence under the radar. You walked in cautiously, hand on the gun you had by your belt. You armed yourself generously; every pocket you had you had put something sharp in it, not that you planned on using it on Nat.
By the time you reached the third floor, you stilled your movements to listen to your surroundings, but all you heard was water dripping from rotten pipes and the sound of the city in the distance.
“If I had known it’d be this easy to smoke you out, I wouldn’t have bothered with all the patrolling we’ve been doing the past few weeks,” you heard a voice spoke behind you.
Turning around, you saw her standing where you came in, dressed in her combat suit, her hair braided and by her shoulders. Behind her, you could see the hilts of her machetes peaking out. She wore a teasing smile on her face like nothing happened.
“You expecting a fight?” You called out.
“Just being cautious.”
“Are we alone?” You asked.
“Yeah.”
“How do I know you’re telling the truth?”
“I guess you’ll just have to trust me.” It was a big feat asking that after all the deception that you’ve done. Humans tended to not be rational after they’ve been lied to, thinking that transparency isn’t warranted on their end. You expected it from Natasha.
“Where’s the disk, Natasha?”
She pulled it out and held it up in between her fingers. “You mean this?”
What you didn’t expect was for her to toss it over to you, just like that. What you needed was in your hands. You looked at the formula in your hands; you’d had to give up your humanity for this.
“Everything you need is on there, or rather, your maker does,” she said.
“Why are you giving this to me?”
“Because I trust that you’ll do the right thing,” she spoke, her eyes soft and empathetic. “I know that if you really wanted to give it to your maker, you could have a long time ago. Something’s holding you back, that’s your humanity, Y/N.”
“That’s not my name.” You shook your head. “I-I don’t have a name.”
“You can still make the right decision,” she took a step closer. “Help us take Caesar down, help me.”
“And then what?” You scoffed humorlessly. “What place do I have in the world? I was made to kill, Natasha. I was made to sabotage and kill you until he decided that I wasn’t good enough. I’m tired of feeling like I’m not good enough.”
“I know you don’t think I know how you feel, but I do.” Natasha looked at you. “Okay? I do. I was made to be a weapon too, one my own handler could just discard if he felt like he didn’t need me anymore. You’d find that a lot of us have similar stories, but we can’t let them win, Y/N. We deserve a chance to live too.”
Her eyes were stained with tears. “You’ve made my life worth living.”
You were crying too, but your tears were synthetic. You had a chance once, but you didn’t go down that path, and now you were here.
Now you were here.
“I’m sorry, but I’ve been stalling.” You spoke quietly.
A loud explosion sounded outside the building, rattling the entire structure. The sound of helicopter blades swarming and landing cut through the night.
“We got incoming, Nat!” You heard Steve’s voice through her intercom.
“So much for being alone,” you utter coldly, and turned on your heels to escape.
There was a loud shriek, a sound of metal giving out. You looked back, and the floor was collapsing in front of you, a dark pit opening up ready to swallow Natasha with it. You didn’t think. You leapt towards the edge, and extended your hand hoping you’d be fast enough to catch her. When she looked up, her face was covered in dirt and grime, in her eyes a rare display of fear.
Whenever you decided to go against your program, your head becomes warm, your body becomes limp, and your judgment slows. It was so debilitating that you sometimes feel as if you had no control over your body at all, your mind screaming at you to obey, obey, obey. And yet you gathered your strength. Yet, you pulled her to safety.
Your superhuman strength and the momentum at which you hoisted her upwards threw her onto the other side of the floor, her body hitting the ground with a thump.
“He won’t let me go,” you knew either way you would die, but it would be by Caesar’s hand.
Without a word, she took your hand and jumped out the window as the rest of the building sunk into a pile of rubble.
The rest of the Avengers quickly assembled around her, but hesitated once they saw you.
“Hey, kid.” Tony floated above the others. “Your room at the Compound’s still vacant. Why don’t you come back with us?”
You laughed, and sat back, still reeling from the impact. You almost missed the searing pain that pierced your side of a bullet fired from distance.
“Y/N!” Natasha gasped.
Your eyes followed the bullet’s line of projection. There it stood, the image of what Caesar wanted you to be, what you could have been but never would be.
FD700-17.
Its eyes were cold and hard, as it holstered the gun it used to shoot you.
“At last, the Avengers.” He reveled in the moment, but scowled when he turned to you. “I should have known you would betray me sooner or later.”
“We’ve done this dance before,” Tony shrugged. “We’ll do it again.”
“Eyes up, guys.” Steve said and charged. 17 was the exact replica of you, and therefore smaller in stature than him, yet it blocked his fist like it was nothing and sent him flying back with a single punch.
Caesar cackled beside it as his army of androids lined up behind him.
“Leave it to me.” You stood up, the bullet materializing out of your stomach. You palmed it and tossed it aside.
17 charged like a bull that saw red. Its punches were heavy and skillful, but familiar. You realized that Caesar had used the same combat program for 17 that he used for you. You matched each other stride for stride, like fighting a mirror.
“You disobeyed Caesar,” it voiced, eyes blazed. “You’ve become weak.”
You managed to block a right hook but didn’t see a knee coming up to thrust into your open wound. You sank to your knees with a cry of pain. You felt a hand grab you by your hair and drag you towards a piece of broken scaffolding that perked up from rubble. It attempted to press your neck into it, its strength overbearingly dominant over your injured body.
“But don’t worry,” 17 seethed. “I’ll take your place.”
You used the last of your strength, fueled by fury, to push back. A headbutt sent 17 stagger back, and you grabbed its head and reversed the position that you were in mere seconds before.
“There’s too many of them!” You heard Clint cry out in the distance.
“Keep going! Don’t quit!” Sam called back as he slammed his wings into one of the androids.
17 was stronger and pushed you back, then proceeded to pummel you hard. When it was done, you noticed half of the shell on your face—the one that gave you your human appearance—had fallen off.
“Traitor!” 17 yelled. “You’re ignorant of the good that Caesar could be doing to the world. You don’t understand his cause!”
“Is that what he’s been telling you?” You managed to utter, spitting out blood. “‘Cause he told me that I was his favorite. That’s what he does. Why do you think I’m number 16, you’re 17? Once he’s bored of you, he’ll toss you aside like you’re nothing.”
For the first time, you saw the corner of 17’s lips perk up. “So naive. This is why you’re no good. I would not let these petty emotions get the way of my service. I will die knowing I’ve serve my purpose.”
It’s got the upper hand, not having an open wound in a spot where it would hurt with every turn of the body. You were staggering when 17 charged towards you, hugging your stomach to slam you down on the ground with a thud. It clamped you down by straddling your midsection.
“So long, 16.” 17 said, pointing a gun at your forehead. You closed your eyes and waited for judgment.
“No!” A scream sounded from afar, then the sound of metal hitting 17 above you. It was Natasha. You opened your eyes, and redirected the gun away from you, just as it went off. In a split second, you had disarmed 17, and had it under your boots.
With a swift precision, you fired into its forehead, the left side of the chest where the synthetic heart would be.
“Too slow, junior.” You muttered, looking down at the corpse of your successor.
“16!” You heard a yell. Turning around you saw Caesar bleeding from his temple, keeping Natasha in a headlock, a gun pointed to her head.
“Let her go!” Tony held out a hand that would fire a rocket at him.
Caesar snickered. “You’ll never understand the magnitude of what I could have achieve with VULCAN, you never will.” He turned to you. “You’re too human for that.”
You sucked in a breath. “I refuse to be your machine.”
“Oh. Is that so?” He squeezed the barrel of the gun into Natasha’s temple, earning a squirm from her as she tried to free herself. “All because of her? She’s barely human. All the things she’s done, all the blood she’s spilled. I’d be almost tempted to take her back, pull her apart and put her back together to become a worthy soldier of mine.”
“It’s over, Caesar. You have nowhere else to run.” You staggered closer. “Let her go if you don’t want to be locked up in the Raft for the rest of your life”.
He took a step back, almost reaching the edge to plummet into the Hudson River. Steve blocked his right next to Clint, while Tony raised his arms feom the left flank. He was completely cornered.
“See, this is why you think you can be human, but you never will be.” Caesar growled, a wild grin on her face, blood caked on his white hair. “I’m your maker, I’ll always be one step ahead of you.”
He didn’t let you respond before aiming the gun at his own head. When he fell to the ground and his head hit the asphalt, he was dead.
You let out a breath you didn’t know you were holding, and suddenly the pain of all the injuries you carried. You didn’t even have half of your face plate anymore, lost somewhere under scraps of the fight.
“Nat . . .” You shuddered, and walked over to her. You hesitated and stopped a few paces before her, but she threw herself at you, locking you in a tight embrace.
She let out a tearful laugh when she pulled back, examining your injuries.
You felt your breath getting more shallow as the second passed. Your oxygen compartments have been punctured, and you saw the warning in your vision: “Life functions critical, be advised to return to base for repair.”
You thought you might have lost your balance and collapsed, but Natasha caught you in time. You rested your head on her lap, your right eye had completely malfunctioned, and you could only see that Nat were crying from the peripheral of your left.
“Life functions critical, be advised to return to base for repair.”
“I’m sorry,” you said, but you did know if your voice was strong enough for her to hear.
“Shh, stop talking,” she refused to meet your eyes, scanning your battered body, and grasping your hand, “reserve your strength.”
“I wish we could have met under different circumstances,” you smiled, but you barely see anymore. “I wish I could have been . . . someone you deserved.”
“You were everything I wanted and more,” Natasha spoke, then rummaged through her pocket. “See this? See this, Y/N? That’s for you.”
She held the ring in front of you, but your eyes were glazed, and staring past her towards the night sky.
“Y/N?” She whispered, like a prayer, like it would somehow pull you back to her. “Tony! Please.”
The man came by your side, but somehow he knew that it was too late.
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When you were activated, you didn’t have a mission. The first emotion you thought you could register was surprise. Why don’t I have a purpose?
You were laying in a bed in a room, one that you thought you had been in before. Its design was modern, sleek, yet elegant with great feng shui. Where were you? You sat up carefully, feeling refreshed and relaxed, as if you had just woken up from a well-deserved sleep. Whatever happened before you slept, you had no recollection of.
The door clicked open, a woman with red hair and an older man with dark hair entered. She had a look of timidness when she came closer, and judging by the lack of confidence in her stance, you assumed she meant you no harm.
“Hey, kid. Glad to have you back.” The man said with a smile. You scanned your database, no memory of him whatsoever.
“You know me?” He nodded. You didn’t even know who you were.
You looked at your hands, your fingers. They curled and uncurled with exceptional speed and precision.
“Nanotechnology. Impressive” You concluded. “Are you my maker?”
The man laughed, and shook his head. “No. Just someone with a knack for electronics, and tried to fix you up.”
You turned to the woman who has been silent this entire exchange. There was a name. “You’re . . . Natasha.”
This came as a surprise to her. She gasped as her eyes began to fill with tears. “Yeah, that’s me,” she said. “How did you know that?”
You shrugged. “It’s the only thing in my database. Why is that?”
There was a lightness that washed over you the moment you said her name, like a bout of heavy rain washing away all the weight of the world, purging you then making room for a new beginning, a fresh start.
Memory was a funny thing like that. Her name must have been the only thing salvaged from your last iteration.
Natasha.
You had no mission, yet you were here. No purpose, yet you were here. Figured, you would make your own purpose in the world, and you knew just where to start.
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